Gratitude (Happiness: Part Two)

وَإِنْ تَعُدُّوا نِعْمَتَ اللَّهِ لَا تُحْصُوهَا ۗ إِنَّ الْإِنْسَان لَظَلُومٌ كَفَّارَ

“And if you were to count the favors of your Lord, never will you be able to count them.  Indeed is man ungrateful.” (Quran, 14:34)

…Yet why is it that human nature is such that we usually count our hardships instead of our blessings?  Modern psychology has even proven that we are more likely to remember bad memories than good ones.

One of the bitter facts of life is that most things cannot be appreciated until they have been lost.

Allah tells us in the Quran that man was created weak, and I'm sure none of us could disagree with that fact.

Imam Al-Ghazali says "Never have I dealt with anything more difficult than my own soul, which sometimes helps me and sometimes opposes me."

Part of this inherent weakness is our lack of gratitude. We take what we have for granted, and never consider it until it has been withheld from us. Being deprived of the things we love is one of the few ways to allow us to renew our appreciation and see our blessings in a new light.

Consider the blessed month of Ramadan: We all struggle with the hunger, thirst, and tire of the daily fasts, but let's talk about that moment we all anticipate: that first sip of water.  Does one ever savor the taste of water as much as after a day of fasting?

Most converts to Islam will tell you that they have never felt true peace in their lives until they made sujood  for the first time (bowing the head in prayer), yet we who have been born and raised Muslim struggle to feel anything at all, in fact, we rush to get prayer over with!  We are so accustomed that we start to take this direct link to Allah for granted, and we show no gratitude. 

Let’s take an economics lesson, (admittedly not a field I excel in, but I’ll try) when there is a scarcity of a certain product, it increases or appreciates in value.  Likewise when we are deprived of certain blessings, what we have appreciates in value, and we begin to appreciate it more.

Everyone prefers an easy life but it is only through adversity and struggle that we are able to grow and evolve, and therefore, make our faith and dependency on Allah stronger.

When a plant is showered with light and water it thrives and grows beautifully. But it is weak. Take these resources away and it will quickly shrivel and die. It cannot survive harsh conditions. But a plant that is given those things in small doses and deprived for long stretches of time, like a cactus is deprived of water, is strong.  It can survive adversity, it rations and it adapts.  Such is the state of man. When faced with a bit of adversity his faith is prone to grow weak, unless he adapts and learns to use his resources more wisely.

وَلَئِنْ أَذَقْنَا الْإِنْسَانَ مِنَّا رَحْمَةً ثُمَّ نَزَعْنَاهَا مِنْهُ إِنَّهُ لَيَئُوسٌ كَفُور

  وَلَئِنْ أَذَقْنَاهُ نَعْمَاءَ بَعْدَ ضَرَّاءَ مَسَّتْهُ لَيَقُولَنَّ ذَهَبَ السَّيِّئَاتُ عَنِّي ۚ إِنَّهُ لَفَرِحٌ فَخُورٌ 

"If We show man Our mercy and then withhold it from him, he yields to despair and becomes ungrateful.  And if after adversity We let him taste good fortune, he says: 'Gone are my sorrows from me,' and grows boastful and glories only in himself." (11:9-10)

An Arab poet said:
"Sunshine all the times makes a desert." Good things are not always good for us in unlimited amounts. No one can argue that sunshine is good, just as blessings and ease are good.  But we often make the mistake of linking tests to hardships.  It may be that Allah chooses to test you with abundance, to see if you will be grateful.

Gratitude turns whatever you have into enough.

Let's turn our expectations in life into appreciation. Show more gratitude towards the blessings which enrich our lives instead of taking them for granted. Even hardships can leave us with something to be grateful for, for when facing hardships, we are forced to reflect on the state of our Iman and the state of our character.  And most of us have never faced a trial we have not grown better from.

In contrast to the one who is ungrateful, The Prophet Muhammed (صلّى الله عليه وسلّم) describes the position of the firm believer, "Amazing is the affair of the believer, verily all his affairs are good for him. If something pleasing befalls him he thanks Allah and it becomes better for him. And if something harmful befalls him he is patient and it becomes better for him. And this is only for the believer.”

If you are not happy with what you have right now, chances are you will not appreciate what you have even when you are blessed with more.  If you seek to quench the thirst for wealth and other worldly desires, know that it will never quenched.  When we follow this desire, we let it become our master.

 “…if the son of Adam has one valley of gold, he will wish that he had a second, and if he had two valleys, he would wish that he had a third. The stomach of the son of Adam will be filled only with dust (he is never satisfied)…”  (Sahih Bukhari)

When you are always searching for what you don't have, you undervalue all the blessings Allah has already bestowed upon you.  The one who always asks and asks without showing gratitude for what he already has will find that his soul (نفس) will never be satisfied.
"Allah's generosity is connected to gratitude, and gratitude is linked to increase an in His generosity. The generosity of Allah will not stop increasing unless the gratitude of the servant ceases." -Ali ibn Abu Talib (RA)

Instead of starving our souls by dwelling upon all that is bad in our lives, let us feed our souls by reflecting and thanking Allah for all that is good. 

Why do we water the weeds in our lives instead of the flowers?

To quote artist Henri Matisse: "There are always flowers for those who want to see them."

In the words of Rumi, "Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life." The more you are thankful for something, the more it will increase its value in your eyes.

وَإِذْ تَأَذَّنَ رَبُّكُمْ لَئِنْ شَكَرْتُمْ لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ ۖ وَلَئِنْ كَفَرْتُمْ إِنَّ عَذَابِي لَشَدِيدٌ 

And remember when your Lord declared, 'If you are grateful to Me, I shall most certainly give you more but if you are ungrateful, verily, My chastisement will be severe indeed!'" (14:7)