Wind of Change

I remember my Arabic ustazah told me of a story when I had a personal conversation with her - I was around ten or eleven; and every evening after the primary school session, I attended Sekolah Agama Rakyat (Public Religious School) at that time.

In my own words, this is the story as I remember it:

A young man is not satisfied with other youth in his society, of their rudeness and impoliteness. He tries to change it. He goes out every day and catches people committing wrongdoings. He does that for years and he realises one thing: Their attitude hasn't changed at all. He comes to a conclusion that his target (the society) was too big for him to manage and he is determined to narrow down his target to his friends. He gives them advices and reminders but after many long years he realises one thing: His friends only behaves when he is around. He makes another conclusion that his target is still too big for him to handle. By this time, he is a father of two. He decides to narrow down his goal yet again to a smaller one: His sons. He gives advices and reminders as what he did with his friends. His sons behaves only at his presence. The man feels sad about his inability to change others. One night, while brooding about his failures, he sees a bird teaches her chicks how to fly. The bird first demonstrates, then the chicks imitate her. The man's face becomes bright - he now knows the answer about how to change others. It is by changing and improving himself to be a better person first, and then demonstrate good deeds to others - not only with words. And he finds himself changing not only his sons, but also the whole society he wished to change.

Moral of this story: The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands. -Robert M. Pirsig



We often talk about changes.
Wanting to change this.
Wanting to change that.
We want this to be like that.
And we want that to be like this.
But have we
ever
for every little thing we critique
for every little thing we want others to change
reflect on ourselves:
"Am I the way I want things to be?"
"Am I doing what should be done?"
"Or am I just like a crab teaching its descendants to walk straight?"
Perhaps we all
forget
that
if we want to change others,
we have to start by changing ourselves first.

Having said that, here is a piece of wisdom from Sayyidina 'Ali Karamallahu Wajhu:
"Damned be a person whose today is worse than yesterday, whose tomorrow is worse than today."

*This entry is especially written as a reminder to myself who always forget to improve myself each day.