In the movie “The Adjustment Bureau,” the hero, David Norris (Matt Damon), defies the higher powers (the bureau) and its master plan to be with the woman he loves. In that pursuit, he had to defy the preset life the bureau had destined for him. The bureau’s agents would try to keep him away from the woman he loves by any means, but failed. It is an excellent movie about not giving up on what you want, believing in your dreams, and, most importantly, having the faith and patience to know that if you try hard enough, you will get it.
Around a year ago, I started A PLAN. I set the plan to take me to where I want to be, and, being the person I am, I went deep into setting it up, its details, and all the possible scenarios, not to mention the timeline and the KPIs. Now, mind you, this is not a business goal by any means, but a personal one, and yet I treated it the way I treat everything else in my life, with a PLAN. Well, my plan failed within the timeline I had in mind, and I was devastated and upset for about a month, after which I reviewed what went wrong and why. Yet I was unable to figure it out, which only made me even more upset and frustrated.
So, I swamped myself with more reading and research to learn more about what had happened, because this goal meant so much to me that I was really upset when it failed. So a close friend of mine who knew what happened simply told me, “Maybe it was just not meant to be, or it’s just not time yet; everything happens for a reason, you know,” and it was then that it hit me, yes, I know, or I should have known. Between my pursuit of the plan and my grief with the loss, I neglected the most crucial part of all, faith. I went back and looked at all my losses in my life, how upset I was when they happened, and how I feel about them now, which, in most cases, I was actually glad that they did. Today, they are merely a collection of memories; I realized that this was all part of the plan, not mine, but God’s.
In Islamic literature, a famous proverb says, “If God were to lift the veil of the unseen from you, you would choose nothing but your current reality.” This quote means that if you trust in God and know that he loves you. He will always give you what is best for you. You will eventually realize that whatever happened to you, and all that upset you at any moment, was meant to happen the way it did. While you might not know it now, you will learn the lesson when the time is right, as it is all part of the master plan to make you who you are.
Every experience in life must teach us something and make us wiser and more experienced, as we are a collection of our past experiences, which makes us who we are today; the good and the bad combined to create the whole entity of you. It is, of course, our choice to learn from that and practice our learnings moving forward or not. We get overworked most of our lives, caught up in the race to make ends meet and follow our plans, so much so that we forget to live. We forget that it doesn’t always work the way we want, but that is only to set us up for something better. We still don’t know what it is yet. “Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, and other people’s ideas, and it is more than they can cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams,” from The Zahir, by Paulo Coelho.
I recall when a friend of mine went through a nasty divorce with his wife. He thought back then that she was the love of his life, and after the divorce, he was so depressed that he went into therapy. A few years later, however, this friend met his true soul mate. If you ask him about that divorce today, he will tell you it was a blessing in disguise, and he is thankful to his ex-wife for asking for it, for he would never have met his soul mate if he had not gotten through it. I guess it is, as they say, God works in mysterious ways. Personally, when I landed a job in Riyadh over two years ago and had to move out of Jeddah, I was upset. Today, I would gladly say that it was one of the best decisions I have ever made.
So, back to my original saga, my plan. After I understood my friend’s profound yet straightforward comment, I realized that while planning things in life is essential, I realized that I forgot to let my heart in on it and allow my trust and faith to create that crucial balance between the mind and the heart when I am following my dreams or goals, as it is the only way to be at peace with yourself. You see, my plan will work eventually, but it’s just not time yet, so I need to be patient and trust that if I want something hard enough, it will work. I also learned the following:
- Don’t forget to live today. Today is the only day you have in your hand right now, so live it, seize it, and don’t waste it. Don’t let today be the yesterday you lost and wish you could have back. Make sure you make it worth the twenty-four hours you spend; make someone happy, help someone in need, read a good book, spend quality time with your loved ones, or anything that would make you say when you go to bed that night that this was a really good day.
- Always keep a positive attitude. Your positive attitude is key to your success, and all religions and schools of thought emphasize it. All ancient scriptures say that a positive attitude attracts positive things to you, and vice versa; negative thinking attracts negativity into your life. In Islam, Prophet Mohammed PBUH said, “Think good things, and good things shall come.” We all know the famous book “The Secret” and its idea of thinking positive thoughts to attract good things into your life.
- The past and the future are not in your hands. Don’t dwell on the past; it will not change. Learn the lesson it teaches you, and let it go. As for the future, don’t overthink it; as long as you are doing the right things, trust that you will get what you want, or maybe something else even better; have faith that God is fair and that he knows best. Overthinking always makes things worse.
- Never forget your dreams. Dreams are the magical thoughts that fuel us with energy and hope, and a life without either is not a life worth living. So never give up on your dreams, but don’t just keep them as dreams either, or they will be wishful thinking. Instead, do something about them. But be patient and allow things to take their time; as they say, “good things happen to those who wait.”
“It is never too late or too soon; it is when it is supposed to happen.”
– The Timekeeper, a novel by Mitch Albom.
Sources:-
- “The Adjustment Bureau” – The Movie (2011)
- “The Timekeeper” – Novel by Mitch Albom
- “The Zahir” – Novel by Paulo Coelho
