Nothing else matters...

I've read many a time that true wealth is contentment.

I don't know if it's got to do with age, or my contracting cancer nearly 5 years ago or a combination of both, but I must admit that for me, true wealth really is contentment. It's kinda funny to realise this only upon going through a life threatening experience. Sometimes, I suppose, one has to get a good knock on the head to know that what we have in front of our own nose is already good enough for us.

But the nature of man is such that it's never quite enough isn't it? When is it quite enough then? What does it really take for us to say to ourselves 'that's it for me...thank you, I'm done!'?

Laying on what crossed my mind as my death bed immediately after my first major operation back in December 2003, it hit me that when all is said and done - all I really needed was good health. Nothing else really mattered at the time...

This was a strange phase that I went through.

In a way, I cherished the idea that nothing else mattered because there and then, I suddenly felt contented. I mean, there I was, laying on my hospital bed - given 35% chance to live the next 5 years, and for the first time in many years, I felt contented. I actually felt good. Simply because all I wanted was good health, and nothing else mattered - absolutely.

I must say that I'd grown up since then.

I now wake up easily almost every morning between 3 to 4am to recite my night prayers to God. I now love my family more than ever before. I am closer to my daughters and understand them more than I ever did when they were growing up. I'm appreciative and thankful for my wife's relentless effort to make our lives better and better. I am more thankful than I've ever been in my life.

God is indeed great.


Nazlan.

Salam Aidil Fitri

Maaf zahir dan batin.

I wonder how many of us really know the meaning of this oft repeated sentence... 'maaf zahir dan batin'. It's literal translation is to 'forgive... in body and spirit'.

I also often wonder why it is so difficult for us to forgive - truly forgive. Aren't we taught that God creates us 'in the light of His soul', or that we have many similarities to His great attributes. After all, He is the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. If we had been given even a spark of His attributes, then surely it should be easy for us to forgive.

Sometimes, depending on the gravity of the 'offence' we perceive to have received from the person who has hurt us, we may forgive - in body. That is to show outwardly that we have accepted an apology. But then, one can 'feel' that we have not really forgiven 'in spirit' because we have allowed ourselves to contemplate the apology within our ego.

We feel that we were right in our argument. We are convinced that our point of view is supreme, that we have been misunderstood. What we may have done, more often than not, is that we may have even overlooked that we have failed to communicate.

If God AlMighty can forgive the worst sinner of His servant, just who are we to think that we cannot forgive anybody, zahir dan batin? Dare we even think that we are above God Himself? Indeed, to me that has to be the height of stupidity.

Since my contracting cancer, I would like to think that I have been able to forgive much much more easily than I ever did. Oh yes, I used to have an ego so big [and so stupid, I might add] that I thought I can never forgive some of my so-called enemies.

Not anymore.

But I confess, that I must continue to learn to keep quiet when the situation warrants me to keep quiet. Not to spontaneously react, even when the temptation to do so is so overwhelmingly strong. Easier said than done - most times. I am sure, this will further help improve my health - body AND soul.

Selamat Hari Raya,

Maaf, zahir dan batin.

Do think carefully what it really means when you say it, or when someone says it to you the next time round.

Nazlan.