Reflection: Who Decides?

Ordeals and people.
What do we really know about them, especially when combined?

As the holy books have mentioned, men are created to undergo this journey called 'life'. Time swings so fast when it's fun that we're having. When we've got plenty of cash, when being with someone we love, when we have what we have been dreaming for.

Life, on the other hand, seems so endless when we're in the middle of an ordeal. The clock seems to tick so slowly when we have to listen to a boring talk. The days seem to crawl by when our loved ones are in the operation room. Our soul keeps its fatigue mode when we are thinking about a family far far away from us.

Fun times, ordeals.
To which person.
Who decides?

At the back of my imaginative mind, there's a huge filing cabinet in His private room where no creatures could translate even though he/ she could get the hold of what's in it. The drawers keep on opening and closing, files keep on flying and going in. Funny, no one's in the room. It is as if invisible hands took them, invisible being read them and put them back in.

Based on the repertoire written on each file, He decides. This human A should get G type of ordeal because he has had the F type and he passed with flying colors back then. As a boy who's always been with parents, human C would get a type B ordeal. And so on, and so forth. To Him, ordeals must be taken in baby steps (again, this is my imagination talking). A specific ordeal for a specific type of human. He is the Almighty, the holder of all wisdom. And as a human being, I could only imagine how considerations and re-considerations could drive me crazy on daily basis. But, it's Him. I don't doubt (this one's real ).

Ordeals.
Is yours harder than mine?

We, men, are social creatures. We like to mingle, we chat, we have empathy, we compare. We compare what we have with what the other doesn't. We are aware of what they have but we don't. We have our own problems, our own burden of mind to deal with, our own ordeal. Sometimes we chat about it but most of the time, we observe. Then, it's that comparison again. Is your ordeal tougher than mine? Yours is about money, mine is about life and death. My problem determines my future, yours determines nothing. Mine involves this, yours is ONLY about that.

And then finally, the ultimate statement: my life is harder than yours.
And with this statement, we violate our boundary as men, the object of our destiny which is carefully schemed by none other than Him. He who holds all the answers of why tragedy is placed upon us. Of why some people seem to have all the luck, fortune and happiness in this wide world. Of why life seems so unfair.

I have seen people with lives which there doesn't seem to be any way out. Bad job, bad salary, bad health, bad family situation, gloomy future. My life is not exactly a perfect one. It took years before I could find my 'position' in this world. Now, I just have to wait long enough until my time is up. Queuing behind so many others who are also delaying their search for the answer of that why-is-life-so-unfair question. If they can do that, then I can, too. Insya Allah.