Questioning

People in Pakistan spend most of their lives taking care of the elderly. There is no time to be young and enjoy things like marriage and children: whether it is in-laws, or parents or relatives who have no families of their own, a set of older people are allotted to each of us. Career is an indulgence at best if it does not generate enough income to meet the financial needs of the household. Culturally the first priority is family, then work and hence it has never been financial success that have been upheld for role model emulation but selfless sacrifice. Fatalism overrides all impulse because this world is temporary after all, an illusion and nothing else. I accept this latter as Truth, and yet my self can not help but rebel against it. The surest path to Allah is poverty yet the struggle to beat it is considered the accepted way of life. My wanting a PhD, to be a renowned scholar, to have a happy family — by Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani’s definition all these are nothing but conceits of my ego. I believe him. To be in Pakistan despite my ambition, is more out of my sense of responsibility to my family rather than as a service to Allah and yet, accepting that responsibility also comes from accepting the code Allah has prescribed. Being here affords the opportunity to give to people all of yourself but I don’t do it without begrudging it. Therein is my problem. I don’t accept my trials with my head down. I should accept my lot. My lot currently is to serve people at the expense of my career and what my materialistic self would like to see my life as. We’ve decided to ask our parents to bring Chacha to live with us. He doesn’t have long and I can’t help thinking that I too, will die alone, just like him. How much is this our trial and how much is this our mother’s? Are we really being unfair to her by trying to absolve ourselves of our guilt? I wonder.