some people said, you need to love your career. if you don't you'll struggle. my answer is, not necessarily. well, you know love could not be forced. it's the natural rule of life. in order to love a person, you'll need to know about a person first, don't you? so we could not expect people who are newly born to a career, to love the career just like that. they would have to fall in love with the career. yup. fall in love.
how do you know when you're falling in love? truth is you never know, you suddenly do. just out of the blue, your heart is attached to it. for some reasons we might not even know. so the question is, how do you know when you fall in love with your career, or more importantly how to make you fall in love with the career?
i honestly a new born baby in this teaching profession. future english teacher in malaysian schools. well, boarding school to be accurate. i have not even stepping into this profession deeply enough, even my practicum is yet to start. but hey, i do not want myself to see this career or this profession as a burden, before i even begin with it. em, yeah, i do heard lots and lots of stories about this career, the struggles, the system, and everything. and to be positive in something you have not experience, is difficult. but to face the new experience, with many negative impressions about it, is even harder.
thus, i realise about one thing, i just need to have a right filter for all these descriptions or impressions about the teaching profession. a filter which could twist the negatives to positives. a filter that could change the bad to good, the difficult to a valuable challenge. to motivate instead of dissipate.
a right filter. is our intention. the intention made within your heart. the motives, the niyyah that we have, it does seem avery basic thing, but because it IS basic, thus we need to have a strong foundation of a career that we might build for years and years. if a house is built on a weak foundation, soon enough it will collapse by itself.. if our motive is right from the beginning, inshaAllah Allah will ease everything for us. believe, and to ease our journey in that profession, did not mean that we would not face any difficult challenge in it, any negative things, but to ease us with the patience, sabrun jamil, a beautiful patience that make us positive and reflecting towards every test and challenge presented to us, in this life, including our career. in hadith one the prophet saw mentioned,
It is narrated on the authority of Amirul Mu'minin, Abu Hafs 'Umar bin al-Khattab, radiyallahu 'anhu, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu 'alayhi wasallam, say:
"Actions are (judged) by motives (niyyah), so each man will have what he intended. Thus, he whose migration (hijrah) was to Allah and His Messenger, his migration is to Allah and His Messenger; but he whose migration was for some worldly thing he might gain, or for a wife he might marry, his migration is to that for which he migrated."
[Al-Bukhari & Muslim]
i know it's not easy. i dont think it is. but hopefully that with Allah's help, Allah's blessings, we would be able to face this dunya, the reality with an open heart, (redha) inshaAllah. a career is just another tool for us to achieve the goal in akhirah. so whatever tool and blessing given from Allah, we have to use it wisely for our best effort to achieve the best in jannah, which is forever and everlasting. don't let our career be a reason for our failure to become an abid and khalifah in this world.
and of course, for myself, first and foremost to fall in love with this career, we need to take whatever it needs to be a good muslim, and thus inshaAllah, with our iman, we will be guided to love and learn the career as time goes by.
this wordly life is not meant to be easy, that's why Allah grant jannah to those who face it with islam, and true faith (iman). it is not easy to face something you hate, it only becomes easy once you fall in love with it. love the right thing. and so, love Allah, and He will take care of you. amin, inshaAllah
salam ramadhan kareem,
farahfareen
