Dear pal,

do you remember a little note written on each page of your elementary school’s notebook? “Experience is the best teacher”, it says. You may be well-acquainted to the saying, but does it soak into your head and affect your daily attitude?

Oh, chill, I’m not gonna lecture you. Just sit back, and relax because I’m about to tell you a story.

I have a friend. He is, uh, was such a nice, not to mention, good-looking guy who enchanted everyone around him with his pure innocence. I assumed he was pious as he was raised in a religious family. It was good old days when we hung out, talking about stuff. He told me how his parents were strict of religious rules. Good parents, I thought, but apparently my friend didn’t think so. One day, after a long summer break, he started to show some changes. I rarely saw him on campus, let alone at the mosque. Just that, and distance grew between us. We have less frequent encounter, but I can always find him on social media. To my surprise, he has been posting photos of his daily life, which is, let’s say, hedonistic. Name all that worldly pleasures that come across your mind. Debauchery is close enough. He does that kind of thing now, and he keeps posting about it, proudly.

That’s not it. There’s more.

His parents who are, you know, devout religious, found out about their son. I managed to know that his parents never stop giving him advice, smoothly and in the gentlest way possible, to behave as their religion taught. But you know what the son’s reaction to his parents’ perennial good intention? He posted a long status on his social media, spilling his resentment on them. He wrote about how annoying it was to have such parents, who—he said—dictated him which God to believe in. He questioned why they didn’t give him freedom on choosing his own belief, while it was his—he inserted the f-word here—life. He even threw a remark that even God failed to make him believe in His existence. He closed his short essay by saying that he had to lie and pretend to be a good son for them, in order to be loved and funded. He even admitted that all that he cared was their money.

That status dropped explosive on me. Where has my dear friend gone? The innocent Prince Charming is not so innocent anymore, in fact—as people put—grows stupid. Uh, does the story sound familiar?

I assure you, I’m not talking about Dorian Gray. Forget that Oscar Wilde’s Gothic protagonist, what I told you is a true story. Let’s hope he won’t go as far as Dorian did.

It broke my heart, seriously. He takes his parents for granted, and even looks down on God! That’s loads of arrogance he showed, whereas just a tiny bit of it can destroy whole good deeds. What a shame.

It breaks my heart to see him become an agnostic. It saddens me that he too thinks religious belief is not relevant in today’s modern and advanced world. He thinks holding on conservative religious teaching will get him nowhere, and will only hinder his path in the world full of competitions. I wonder if Kemal Atatürk is his role model :(

Frankly, people are talking about him, judging him based on the established moral value here. You and I, my pal, can do better. Let's learn from him instead of judging him.

Now, I invite you to reflect on this. “Experience is the best teacher”. It doesn’t have to be your own experience, we can also learn from others. That’s even better because we don’t have to actually go through the bitter part. Well, if you are not into religious belief either, make sure we’re still on the same page about morality here. Only then can you take a valuable lesson from the story of my friend.

My wish for you, my dear pal, is that you'll never fall into the same hole my other friend did.

Have a nice day :)

Love, something everyone seeks. A mere common word which is considered powerful. Just a word, which moved Neruda to write his critically acclaimed love poems, eventually led him to be known as one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. Indeed, love is something beautiful as well as powerful, meaningful as well as harmful. In short, it’s a double-edged sword. Only people who know how to wield it can truly find happiness. Otherwise, love will only be a downfall. How to wield it, then?

You know, this subject is tricky. You just can’t help the feeling, head over heels for someone, ready to die for them, only to waking up heartbroken. You can finally stand again, finding someone new, only to be back to square one. You love again. You’re hurt again. You feel like running in a never-ending circle just to find your better half. Then, you start to not believe in love. Oh, despair not. Try to trace back what you did wrong. Clueless? You think you did nothing wrong?

Perhaps, you loved them too much.

What’s with it, you say? Well, first, common sense, fella: everything too much is never good. Let me share to you something precious a friend told me this morning, “If you love someone or something more than you love Allah and His prophets, it’ll never work out.” I’ve heard this many times, but this time it hit me hard. I started to look back, and realised how I’ve been living fancying vain things instead of praying. I might perform my prayers full time, but my time for looking up the vain things I like was more than the time I used to communicate with God.

Is it the case with you too? If yes, we found your problem. The solution is easy, but of course, easier said than done. If you want someone to be your future, get closer to Allah, not to them. If the person you want falls to someone else’s embrace, then surely Allah has a better one, in fact the best, in store for you. The key is to love someone because of Allah. Just let Allah guide you to the right path, believe in Him. If you make Allah your beloved King, for whom you do everything, then you could be united with that someone, even if they are in the other hemisphere of the globe.

I’m no one to tell you this, but heed what I shared to you. Let’s do this the right way, hand in hand, reminding each other to be better. Insha’Allah we’ll build our happy little palace here and in the afterlife :)