October 08, 2020
Let’s redefine happiness and celebration.
The pandemic is teaching us a lesson but are we paying attention?
Ever since we’re born we’re taught the meaning of sacrifice and its significance to bakra eid, however the lesson never hit home quite like this year.In many ways this pandemic is teaching us things what decades on god’s green earth couldn’t: learning to let go of what we hold dear- in the sense of not being careless or ruthless about it- but understanding that attachment too, can become unhealthy.
That is not just true of material things, but of ideals. Being too attached to any ideal- of how things should be- need to be- our definitions of good, of happy, of successful can make us rigid. Make us stagnant. Worse still, make us brittle and arid.
This eid we must let go, redefine, evolve, and grow! Re-define:
Whoever decided that celebration had to mean endless socializing? With a great emphasis on making sure you met as many people as possible? That without people- perhaps- there can be no celebration?
Well, whoever it was, now needs a new lesson. That lesson is to learn to celebrate simply! With a few loved one. Wearing our favorite clothes. Perhaps eating our favorite food! Because “you don’t know what you got until it’s gone”
The pandemic, is our biggest teacher and it says, this Eid, be happy for what you have. Count your blessings. If there was ever a time to truly put this learning to practice, it is NOW!
(Here’s a secret though; that is the secret to happiness, with or without the pandmeic. Shush!)
How about this Eid, you dress up, make yourself a nice cup of tea, go sit on your couch and sacrifice your ideals of control, happiness and celebration! Replace them with new ones.
The old ones do not serve us anymore and it’s time to move on. To let go! Of not just the goat but the cognitions that hold us back!