Bring it on Winter. I am prepared for you

Ever heard the story of the ants and the grasshopper? All summer long, the grasshopper wasted his time by happily enjoying life, singing and feasting on the readily available leaves.. not the least bit care to collect food or to built a nest. He laughed at the ants that were too hardworking. To him, it is a shame to continue working when the weather was this nice. “Summer won’t stay long. If you don’t enjoy it, you might just missed it,” he said. The ants on the other hands would rather miss the opportunity to enjoy summer as long as they could prepare for the dreadful winter. That’s why they didn’t mind working at all. As you’d probably guessed,winter came eventually. The grasshopper died from the cold and starvation, whilst the ants strived living underground, protected from the cold, comfortable and with loads of food collected all summer long.. happily singing little ants song. What a positive story.

My experiences as a PhD student, however, had made me realized that everything is uncertain in this life. People studied hard, but they still could not secure that dream job… Others were married for 25 years, but they still ended up in a break up… Some tried so hard at work, but they still being ignored by their bosses. Life is hard. Nothing you do now could promise anything in the future. Not any where similar to the ants & the grasshopper story. Everyone knows this. You know this and I know it too…So why do we bother trying?

I have seen colleagues who had been working on the same experimental methods for years and years, though they had perfected their techniques beyond mortal perfection, results still came out….disappointing. Though they had modify so many aspects of their research, things still screwed up to the point of no repair. Sometime I asked my self. Is it worth it to sacrifice so much time and effort for something so uncertain? Especially since there are plenty of evidences to show that no matter how many times people tried, chances are their experiments will fail except for the always seemed to be lucky, 1% minority. So, what are we still doing here? With pens, papers, blood, sweat and tears… toiling day in and day out trying to finish what?  this little “life-drainer” called PhD? What for? 

If you are a student, I’ll need your opinion. Do you think it is worth it to study? to waste so many years at school when you could just enjoy life and play or loiter around all day instead… Do you think it’s worth it to have to learn about the oh so many difficult things that caused us headaches but to still end up not using them at all in our daily lives? (Well, I for one can definitely survive without algebra, let alone the theory of relativity). So why can’t we just stop studying and have fun instead? Why can’t somebody put an end to this unneeded sufferings? 

Stupid questions [full stop]

Of course no one would. Because education is important! Occasionally, you would see your friends who are not studying, living their care free lives they have always dreamed of. You would longingly wonder how lovely it would be to trade place with them.To live your life to the fullest for a change. But no!.. You tell yourselves..You won’t. Because, you believe that education can get you somewhere in the future. Because you believe that you’ll come out a happier person if you have this scroll in your hands with that potentially 5 digits monthly income that comes with it. When that time comes, you’ll know that all these sacrifices would be worth it.

Well, my friend, I have only one thing to say.. KEEP ON DREAMING.. After all, there is no harm in dreaming. A little positive attitude toward the future never hurt anybody, right… [ ouch… So sarcastic]. 

What I am trying to say is… despite knowing that studying is difficult, requires a lot of effort, demanding a lot of sacrifice and at times phenomenally frustrating, we still volunteered to do it. And for what? For a measly vague chance of a better future, which is not even confirmed yet? And who is to say that this beautiful future of yours is not going to be interrupted by a chronic illness or a severe accident  or (hopefully not)  a violent death? God forbid, if those things are to happen to anyone of us, would we look back at your lives and say we regret studying?  Would you?

Now, here we are again… back at square one. “What is the point of trying when we know for certain that in the end, all is lost and that in the end we are all going to die. So is it even worth it to try?” 

And when you find your answer.. You’ll understand why Muslims do what we do. You’ll understand why my sisters and I, are wearing this hijab on our heads. You’ll understand why we would fast and not eat or drink for a whole month in Ramadan as a show of obedience to Allah… You’ll understand why Muslims would resist all of life little pleasures from forbidden foods/ forbidden acts just to prove to Allah that we obey HIM, regardless. It is the very same reason why we would endure waking up at 3 am every morning, having to skip lunch or rush home after work, to make sure that we observe that 5 times of prayer every day, without fail. Because like the ants, we do not mind missing on the merriment of summer as long as we could prepare ourselves for the dreadful winter. Indeed it would be a shame not to enjoy summer, but when winter comes, we’d know that all of these sufferings and all of the sacrifices would be so worth it.

The best thing about it is, when we are old and are lying helplessly on our death beds, we would look back at our lives. Like the ants, we would happily say. “Bring it on Winter, I am prepared for you.” and with our last breath we would say Laailahailallah, Muhammadurrasulullah and calmly go. 

Didn’t we all agreed that a little positive attitude toward the future never hurt anybody?

The End.