Mistakes

We all make them; we all know how it feels as soon as we realize the mistake. Personally every swear word in the urban dictionary would pass through my head, before I get back to reality and realize the situation I created. Yes we create our mistakes, as humans we would love to blame it on others; be it circumstances, peers, our life. We have an excuse for everything but rarely do we direct it on ourselves and say: “It was Me”.

Mistakes immediately bring on a feeling of sorrow, regret, fright, "the fleeing moment" where we want to flee, run, and just pretend it never happened. Did you ever think of mistakes in light of the Quran? Sub7an Allah, you realize humans are built to ER, why? Because sometimes only through errors do we become stronger, rounder, better humans. How? Well recently I dug a "hole" and "jumped" into it willingly only to come out of it realizing what a huge mistake I made, al7amdulilah I had "Al Sattar" with me, al7amdulilah I never lost my faith or Iman in Allah, what did this feeling do? It leads me to creating a 4-step rule. The rule I believe is the way out of any mistake, and it took me weeks to try to put it into words. I even asked Faith MD, what she thought, she replied plainly:” What you are describing is the steps to al tawba”!! Did I think it was Al Tawba? Not at all. I just saw it as a way to learn from my error, and Allah a3lam I have made many in my life! And I'm sure I will make many more. Following is my analysis of how to deal with mistakes, in other words: M.A.R.S....

M: Mistakes, the defining moment, where your heart drops, your temples sweat, your regret seeps in, and this is a reaction to your action. We can’t help think this for a moment, maybe not immediately after sometimes it takes days or months to realize a mistake. Once you define it and see what went wrong only then can you move on to the next step.

A: Accept it! People, work, peers drive us to try to be perfect, in western society perfection is important for success, in our society "perfection is Allah", and we are human. So next time you feel the guilt just remember you’re on the road to recovery ;)

Guilt means your heart wants to heal. Accept the reality you're in, accept that you only have yourself to blame as no one must drive you to do anything ultimately it's only you who drove yourself to do it, blindly.

R: Rebuild. Change your feeling of sorrow and regret, once you accept you’re at peace, now its time to gather the strength and focus! Yes it’s probably my favorite step. Here you act, not negatively but in the opposite directly positively. Let me give you a simple example. Say, you spoke about someone in a negative way, or you got worked up chatting with a friend only to realize you hurt him or her. Suddenly things get a bit stiff, or you don’t know how to act in their presence, it's always awkward. The rebuilding of this is to act upon it no matter how awkward the situation is, send her a gift or the least an SMS describing maybe a quote friendships, and ending it with a " :D " A smile does wonders and it's a way to rebuild and re-enforce what your friendship truly means. A way to rebuild with Allah sub7anah, is to go back and ask for forgiveness, nothing is better than a prayer, sometimes during the night, and an honest plea for forgiveness, knowing that he is "Al Ra7man". Believe me that, not only creates a stronger connection with Allah, but also makes you feel your iman has just doubled tenfold! What does rebuilding do? The next step:

S: Success!! Soon the rebuilding acts you were doing, will make you realize you're bond with Allah is so much stronger. The next time you're in similar circumstances, you won't act the way you did before. You wont say the things you said, or you won't let others influence you to act in the way you did! Suddenly your a stronger person, you're more rounded, focused, and have more control of yourself knowing how to act, and most of all knowing that you choose how to act. You control  your mistakes with this 4-step process; your mistakes don't control you or you're mood anymore ;-)

I hope this makes a bit of sense, I would love to get feedback, as I said it took me a while to see how to write this. I will leave you with a beautiful Ayah on Mistakes and Rewards:

Except those who repent and believe (in Islamic Monotheism), and do righteous deeds, for those, Allah will change their sins into good deeds, and Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.