What is my default state? It’s a question I’ve been pondering. By default state I mean the mental and emotional baseline in which I spend the most of my time.
It used to be motion. I was always chasing after worldly success, running from goal to goal, believing it would fulfill me. Then I grasped Rumi’s secret.
When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of distress and anxiety; If I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, and without any pain. From this I understand that what I want also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me. There is a great secret in this for anyone who can grasp it.
Now I don’t make myself miserable with what is to come or not to come. Contentment is my default state.
I move away from insisting that life be this way or that, and I learn to affirm life as the play of God. I see divine providence in all that crosses my path—the disappointments and defeats as well as the joys and victories, and even in those circumstances that I don’t want and would never choose. I’m okay with it all.
When things don’t go the way I wish, I assume a larger plan is at work. This unseen pattern—call it fate or the will of God—may not be clear to me now, but it will be revealed, and I accept it. I have no interest in grabbing life by the collar and throttling it into submission. It is I who submits.
This doesn’t mean that I give up or become passive. It just means letting go of getting my way. The truth is I have no idea what’s best for me. I mean that. How certain I was about a girl or a career only to discover I was mistaken.
The Quran states: “It may be that you dislike something, though it is good for you. And it may be that you love something, though it is bad for you. And God knows, and you do not know.” It’s a liberating realization since it allows me to harmonize the divine will with my own.
I still stray from my natural equilibrium now and then, but I always find my way back to it. As Prophet Muhammad said, “Contentment is a treasure that never exhausts itself.”
