Trees and Shadows

A month before I finished high school four years ago, I started passing around a black notebook to my teachers for them to hand over their 'amanat terakhir' to me before I leave the boarding school. There's so many wise reminders that they have shared with me, but a few days ago the page with my former Vice Principal (HEA)'s signature at the bottom caught my attention. It says:

Adab dan akhlak biasanya diibaratkan seperti pokok, dan kemasyhuran adalah seperti bayang-bayang. Tapi malangnya, kebiasaan orang lebih suka melihat bayang-bayang daripada melihat pokok. Fikir-fikirkanlah.

Four years ago, I might have told myself: "I know what it means". But knowing its literal meaning doesn't necessarily mean that I understand the underlying message its trying to convey. Triggered with his last words "fikir-fikirkanlah", I decided that I was too naive too understand what the two-sentence quote really mean at that moment - I might not be mature enough to judge the advice based on my 17 years of life experience. I am quite certain that he purposely note down the last phrase to remind me that I have to give that writing not a quick glance, but a deep thought.

Back then, in 2015, I was only known by more or less 500 people. There's only my family, my primary school friends and teachers, my high school friends and teachers, and probably the few friends I made on camps that I went along the way and some seniors and juniors who are friendly enough to approach my introvert self. Fame, or kemasyhuran as Cikgu Rashidi put it, is something that I had never really thought of. If you go to my high school and ask the teachers if they remember a person who bears my name, I bet they would first be reminded of a girl who slept in class for almost every lesson, not the girl who was awarded as the best student of the year. The point is, there's nothing really huge about me to be proud of.

BUT. That was long before any position I hold brought me not only responsibilities but also name and fame, and also way before social media introduced me not only to readers and viewers, but also likers and followers. And me being an ordinary human, I guess I could never run away from being consumed by the urge to gain some attention. 

Living in the era of the millennials, I guess we should try not to make our life revolve around other people's pleasure. Every time we feel like standing at the edge of falling into the temptation of gaining attention, for me, it's about time to take a break. We need to pause, take a step back and ask ourselves again why are we here (on any social media account) in the first place. I myself had disappear from social media on those times I feel like I'm having an 'unpurified' intention. Whenever I take a pause and start fresh, I care much less. I guess that's the only way to remind myself to forget the number of likes and viewers, the only thing that matters is that my sharing is done not to please others.

I start to realise that at some point, tests can come in various forms in life. For example, with the presence of this online and virtual life, our hearts are tested in a more and more delicate manner. It simply mean that there's a need for us to be a frequent flyer of the journey of self reflections, in order to keep our greater purpose and intention on the right lane. In doing things for the sake of Allah, we might have often overlooked that:

One of the many reasons we continue to get easily disappointed in life is because we allow our hearts to deviate by doing something noble with the wrong purpose and intention... (it) will cause more distress especially when they are made with the intention of pleasing people.

If I can tie the two together; the excerpt I quote from 'The Art of Letting God' (above) and the short note from my teacher, they are both conveying a quite similar message: do not tie your action or intention to others. Stop wanting to be a people pleaser and seek to please the Creator. We should always remind ourselves not to bother about chasing after fame and public attention when the thing that matters most to Him (and supposedly to our own self too) is our morals and manners. Plus, chasing after fame and publicity can be one of the small 'syirik'! Na'udzubillahi min zaalik.

With that, let me end this post with a quote from one of my sources of inspiration in life:

Adab menjadi sesuatu yang mahal pada zaman ini, walhal ia percuma. Maka jadikanlah diri kita dalam kalangan mereka yang beruntung masih punyai kemewahan adab dan budi dalam jiwa. - Teme Abdullah

Let us stop looking at the shadow of fame and start focusing on the tree of manners, so that we can keep a close eye on our self-growth and give our best to keep our intention pure while serving our duties as responsible individuals in this world, insya Allah :)