Conversation 3:
This conversation was also with a female close friend, and it too involved relationships and marriage (Isn't that the hottest topic among girls!!!) although from an entirely different perspective. This friend of mine has a theory, and I have a theory that's totally different, and we ended up raising our voices in the middle of a diner to prove the other is wrong! My theory is that you choose what happens to you in a relationship because you've chosen the other person in that relationship, and therefore you are responsible for either your happiness or your misery. Well, she believes in a saying that our mothers inflicted upon us: Marriage is a fate, and you can't escape your fate!!! So if a woman is destined to marry a big SOB then no matter how hard she tries she'll end up marrying a big SOB!!! Well no thank you!!! And you can see from the bunch of exclamation marks just how pissed I am with this belief. Why people?!! Why do you want to blame your ill-made choices on fate and God?!! God isn't unjust, and fate isn't blind. I had to convince her with my theory, and in doing so I really discovered my theory and I strongly believe that it has depth (a rare time in which I do believe my thinking isn't that bad!)
My theory is this: God deals us a set of options, so in our quest in life, we're bound to always choose from that pool of options that God gave us. Again, it's a matter of probability laws. In this specific topic, maybe what people say about fate isn't entirely wrong, but it could take a wider outlook. Maybe God gives every man and woman a set of options (women and men) to choose from, and it's up to us to make the choice. So in making the choice, we don't stray from the track drawn to us, but we can still rationalize our choice based on our way of thinking. I mean really, what's the point of believing that marriage is fate?!! If that was the case, then why do we fuss about it that much? Why do we accept or refuse certain people? And why some of us end up happy while the other end up miserable? If that was God's choice for us and we had no say in the matter, then doesn't this lead us to believe that God is unfair? (God forbids any human being believe in this!) No people, God gives you options and you make the choice! It's just like the eternal question asked by Muslims: Are we free choosers or are we driven by destiny? I think the debate is still heating on this matter, but a lot of us have reached the conclusion that if I'm not a free chooser then punishing me for anything is unfair, because this contradicts God's mercy, and contradicts God's orders that we start being held accountable by puberty because before that we can't make reasonable "choices."
So this friend of mine kept insisting that marriage is fate, this reminded me of my mother! She used to say this: Your father did the impossible and I didn't want to marry him, then I accepted, you see? That's fate!!! OMG! She accepted and that's fate!!! And when I argued with her that this was her won free choice and nobody forced her the only thing she had to say was this: May God put in your way a bad path that you'll take by the power of fate! (or something like that!) The exact same sentence this friend of mine said, as if this is the only and sure way to prove me wrong (and punish me for saying otherwise in the process!) My friend took a step further and reminded me of a bad choice I made, and I replied: I NEVER said: Why God did you allow me to make that bad choice? I always said: I was wrong to make that bad choice and it's my own wrongdoing, and I deserve every unhappiness I may suffer because of it. I won't deny that at times I did say: Why God did you deal me that bad choice as one of my options? But I did stop myself because I KNEW that I could've gone the other way. It's my own choice.
I know that God knows our ultimate destination, whether we'll end up being happy or not in each aspect of our lives: Religion, work, marriage, kids, health, and so on. But the bottom line is WE DON'T KNOW! So we have to make decisions, choices, compromises, and sacrifices. It's the nature of these decisions that will guide us to happiness or misery. Didn't the first atheists "koffar" choose to not believe in God? If they didn't choose that, then why are they punished? They did make a choice, as the first believers made the choice to believe in God. The total surrender to God's will doesn't mean that we live life in randomness; it means that we do our best to make good choices and leave it to God to bless these choices or test us with failure. Even then we have a choice to accept failure and try again or to get mad and stop believing.
I hate the word "naseeb", and I hate those who make it an excuse for their own bad choices. No woman walks into a marriage not fully aware of the foes of her husband (and if he took care to hide some or all of his bad traits, then this is a test not fate, and she has a choice to get out or stay in). And since a woman is aware of any bad traits in the man she's about to marry and she still marries him, she has to live with her choice and take it bravely, knowing that it's HER choice. I said before that no one should get into a relationship with the mindset that he or she will change the bad things in the other person, because only one who can change me is me! I can change because I want to be better (or worse for that matter!) and I can change because I want the other people (whom I think highly of) to appreciate, like, or love me more. So a woman who marries a man with bad traits in the hope that she will "change" him is a very conceited woman unless follows the above strategy (and the man isn't very bad or evil!)
Other than my friend's wish for me to get my punishment for not believing in the superior inevitability of fate, I had indeed gained two insights:
- I'm a bad debater; I tend to get anxious in defending my beliefs and thoughts, I may raise my voice, and I won't budge until I do my own analysis at home in the privacy of my room! She actually said it to my face, and reflecting on this matter I found out that she's right; whenever I'm discussing my point of view against another point of view, I get irritated and defensive, and that's not a basis for a fruitful conversation. So, for anyone reading this entry, I do believe strongly in my own views unless I'm very strongly proven wrong, but I apologize if I ever raised my voice to someone or even talked in a heated way.
- People won't budge on their beliefs. They'll keep seeing that they're right. I guess this is a part of the "No one can think better than me and no one sees the subject as I see it and my view of it is the most insightful." Or at least that's what I think of myself.
I have tried over the last few years to be milder, more easy-going, and more forgiving, but apparently (according to my friend) I'm failing badly. Maybe it's a Leo trait or something, but I'm still stubborn enough to irritate her to the point of wishing me ill-fate :D
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