On Balance: Practical Perspective

Bismillah, In the name of God

Balancing our hearts can be quite a task, but in essence it is easy. To bring to life this idea of balancing the heart, let's take an example: Let's say that the entire week you are engaged in serving others and helping others. Your intention is good -- to create some positive change around you. However, by the end of the week, you begin to feel tired from carrying the burden while having barely attended to yourself. Now a day comes that someone is slightly off in the way they speak to you or just not appreciative of what you've been doing the entire week and you explode on them. You hurt that person out of your anger because they happenned to get on your last nerve. You exhausted your capacity and over-estimated your limits. Knowing and operating within your limits is very important. Therefore, in this case it would have been better for the individual to allocate time to serve others as well as to pursue activities that would please his own soul. These activities would only serve as fuel and energy to sustain his efforts in the direction of helping others. Maintaining this balance within ourselves will ensure inner harmony as well as harmony between ourselves and our environment. Reflection is the key to getting to know yourself. Constant reflection on ourselves and our environment will help us in finding this balance. Most of all, we must ask God(swt) for help in our struggles. More on this topic to come...