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How to Live a Hopeful Life?
Among the most important illnesses of our time is the ‘acute and chronic depression’, which is caused by the repeated failure to achieve goals, with the resulting desperation. It is clear that man can only achieve part of his aspirations. Therefore, he may experience an involuntary relapse because of that, with the accompanying psychological and physical symptoms.
The solution to this problem does not lie in achieving all our goals, something no man ever accomplished, but in learning how to put failure behind our backs and start again. This, however, needs special knowledge.
Desperation is sometimes related to ‘life goals’. In other times, it is related to ‘the divine Mercy’. The first kind deprives man of his transient happiness; the second deprives him of his eternal happiness. Our scholars have deemed desperation of Allah’s Mercy to be a mortal sin. Because man needs comfort in both worlds, it is necessary that we get rid of both kinds of desperation.
Encountering the first failure is one of the causes of despair. The man who does not have the forbearance and the capability to contain crises will back up facing the first crisis and will not re-try to enter life’s arena. This is the result of living in a luxurious environment, which encourages man to be dependant on others.
Encountering disturbing people, even if one has good intentions, is another cause of despair. One ought not to be idealistic in his estimation of people and life. Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) said, “I, the prophets before me and the believers did not cease to be tried by people who hurt us, and even if the believer was on a mountaintop, Allah would send someone to hurt him so the He would reward him for that”. There they are the prophets-Allah’s best creation-did not escape people’s wronging and their false accusations. Therefore, standing firm against people and not running away from them is the solution, for what profits men is what stays what stays in earth.
Another cause of despair is the insistence on following a single way of dealing with life matters. What is wanted from the wise man is to alter his ways of dealing with matters according to the circumstances. Either sternness or gentleness alone are not always effective, rather, it is necessary to apply each to the proper setting. Therefore, making the wrong judgment will make others resentful and incompliant. This in turn will make despair of having an effect on people or even communicating with them, inevitable.
Another cause of despair is leaning on others in all matters and seeking to satisfy them even if it was on wrong basis. He who only cares about satisfying others and seeking their love will face the fact that people do not stay the same and thus the same people he used to lean on would harm him. From this, Allah teaches us a lesson; that we must not rely on anyone but Him.
As for giving up hope in Allah’s Mercy-which is the main part of today’s sermon-we have this to say: If man reaches this dangerous stage, he will lose the ability to change anything in his life, which is what Satan needs to keep him disobedient until the end of his life. Hence, the Qur'an's saying, {Of Allah’s comfort no one should despair, excepting the people of the unbelievers}!
We ought not deny the fact that man goes through states- like the teenage years, the times when lust and anger dominate, staying in countries where infidelity and sin dominate and being obliged to keep company of a bad group-that stress him to drift towards disobedience. Because disobedience is somewhat justified in these circumstances, Allah will readily turn towards these men when they repent on the condition that they do not insist on disobedience.
When the genuine repentant returns to Allah, he will go fast in his motion. The awareness of his black history will motivate him to make a better record and to compensate for the time lost in ignorance. It is known that refraining from doing misdeeds in one stage will give man the power to refrain from doing misdeeds in the future stages, because it will condition his soul to refuse the call of desire and caprice.
A quick review of the sayings about repentance in the Tradition makes one astonished when he sees the yearning of the Lord of all worlds for the repentance of his disobedient creatures. Here is a sample: Allah said “O, David! If those who turn their backs on me would know how is my waiting for them, my kindness to them and my yearning for them to forsake their disobedience, they would perish in yearning for me and their body parts will be cut off from loving me!”
It is wrong to disparage those who sincerely repent because of their history in disobedience. It is known that by becoming a Muslim, past misdeeds are disregarded, the repentant and the one who did not do misdeeds are alike, asking for forgiveness eliminates great sins and that venial sins are no more venial if persistently repeated.
He who returns back to disobedience each time he repents, is mocking himself and his Lord and will never be given the Success to achieve repentance because he reached the stage of ‘sealing of the heart’. So, he becomes like someone who is involved in a critical situation, which he could not get out of it. Nevertheless, we must simplify repentance for the disobedient by citing the fact that real regret, the determination not to sin again and returning men’s rights back to them are enough.
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