By Nurasyikin Bakhtiar Kamal
Has it ever occurred to you that whatever you say, pray, or should I say manifest could become a reality? The desire that you have been silently wishing for inside your heart or the words that you have spoken out loud to the world somehow is not just mere words and wishful thinking anymore.
They come to your doorstep either to make you feel happy and grateful or worse leave you in a state of trauma or regret. Another way to illustrate this is that what you have said to others, and even yourself has put you to the test. Backfiring and turning against you. Why am I saying this? Because I nearly died for what I had been yearning for, and to my surprise, I find myself no longer wishing for it.
Back when I was a senior in high school, I made this constant self judgement and set expectations for myself in everything I did, especially in terms of studies. I endlessly put myself under a lot of pressure that ended up draining myself and being the eldest daughter in the family did not help it. So, there was this one time when I had to sit for a physics paper, but my mind went blank as if I never revised for it when I was literally burning my midnight oil prior to the examination.
I did not study at the last minute or procrastinate. I usually study vigorously and take full responsibility when it comes to my studies, making me one of the top students in my school. But somehow, this one paper got me questioning myself. It got worse when I overheard my classmates discussing the answers immediately after the exam ended, and to my dismay, I did not have the same answers.
Imagine how dumbfounded and frustrated I was at that time. I felt like the stupidest person in that class, and I did not know what came to my mind, but I said out loud that I wanted to die to my friends in the light of getting so many wrong answers.
On the way home, my father asked me how the exam was. I could not hide my feelings as my face openly showed how distressed I was since I sat behind him in the passenger seat while my brother was in front. So, I replied as I looked out of the car’s window, “It was terrible, I feel like dying.” I know that I was being dramatic, but I cannot help from being so upset with myself.
My mind was cluttered with negative thoughts, and the continuous repetition of saying as well as wanting to die was unhealthy. All because of one failed paper. Right after I said that to my dad, I saw an enormous bus speeding towards us. I was too stunned, and my father was unaware of it because it was coming from the right side of our car. I started to scream, trying to alert my father. He panicked but managed to avoid the car from being hit, and Alhamdulillah, we were lucky enough to survive from the crash, but I was left in a daze because I was too stunned by what had just happened to my family and I.
During that critical moment of my life, I swear that everything in the world went silent. I could not hear anything, and I swear that the massive bus was speeding towards us what appeared to be in slow motion, especially when it was so close to hitting the car. My whole life flashed right in front of my eyes, and in that moment of silence, I regretted what happened that day. The remorse I felt was so great that I wanted to take back what I had said to my father, my friends and even to myself because it backfired on me in a way I could never imagine. I had never been involved in a crash; it was the first time I almost got into a big accident.
Certainly, I do not want to face it again in future. Despite wanting to die so much on that day, I want to live. There were also instant pangs of my conscience that I was in the wrong for saying and wishing to be dead, but Allah was so great that He had given me a chance to still be alive until today. He had tested me in a way that He thinks would give me a valuable life lesson. Now, despite not getting the score that I wanted, which made me feel miserable, I will try my best not to be so upset because as long as I am already giving my best in the exam, why should I give up, right?
Indeed, our words carry a certain weight, and we must be mindful of whatever we wish, pray for or speak of. To ourselves and even to others, especially our judgement of other people. Why do I say so? Because I used to be and know someone who turned into someone they hate. Someone who ends up doing something which they promised they would never do. For instance, those who judge someone who dresses up not according to the Shariah principle ends up being the one who no longer keeps their hijabs on and starts wearing something revealing.
In fact, much worse than that. If you have nothing good to say about someone, then just say nothing. Our words do speak louder and what goes around comes around. We will get tested with what we say, both good and bad. You pray to Allah to make you stay away from Maksiat, but suddenly your friends invite you to a party.
Would you be brave enough to say no and stay away from it, or would you do something opposite of what you are praying for, it was all your choice, but the thing that I want to highlight here is that we must be mindful in whatever we say, pray, wish and do.
Overall, our words have tremendous power and can be manifested into something beautiful as well as disastrous but it is we who will pull that trigger to test ourselves whether we truly meant what we just said and wished for.***