#20 Reflections: You Can’t Have It All

Sometime this week I had to go to a location in the outskirts of the next town for my job (read more in #18). When I looked at Maps, it was going to take me more than hour to get there in public transport. There was 2 buses involved and a short walk to the place.

Or I could get there in 18 minutes in car.

I don’t have an insurance (yet), which means I could not take myself. But I though why not try asking mum. After all, I knew plenty of friends who ask their parents to take them all over the country and their parents willingly oblige. Surely, my parents wouldn’t mind doing this for me just this once?

I asked and was given a look and an immediate no. I tried to push it, ‘it’s only 20 minutes away’. My mum replied, ‘And you want me to drive 20 minutes back as well?’

Fair point. But why don’t other parents ask this to their children?

Did she care?

I knew it’s not that she didn’t care about the long journey I had to take instead. I heard her ask my dad to try make sure to pick me up on the way back from work. I woke up the next morning to find my lunch packed for me and a sunny-side up egg for my breakfast. I heard it in her stream of questions about the route I was planning to take.

I knew it’s not that she didn’t care.

But as I was taking my 1 hour 8 minute journey to the location, I couldn’t stop the thought from coming to me. Why can’t my parents just be like the parents of all these friends I have? Like those parents whose main job seems to chauffeuring around their daughters from the masjids to the shopping malls, to the next town to meet a friend, to back home.

I wondered if it was my fault.

Because just like the parents of these friends find this routine completely normal, the children (my friends) also find it completely normal to ring up their parents whenever they need a lift. For me, it’s the complete opposite. Asking my parents for a lift anywhere was usually the last resort. I’d rather walk, take a bus and a train rather than ask my parents to go out their way to take me somewhere. It’s not because they told me not to, but more because I didn’t like the idea of them going out their way just for me. Even in times where I had no choice but to ask them, there always with a nagging guilt that I am inconveniencing them.

With that being said, it’s a mystery to myself that I asked my mum about Tuesday.

Everything comes with a price

I continued to mull over it as I walked the short walk from the bus to the warehouse. What was so different in our family to these other families whose kids seem to have it all.

And then the penny dropped.

Because no, they didn’t have it all.

Yes, their parents seemed to be at their beck and call, ready to go out their way to make life easy for their kids. But there was another side to it. It’s not that they didn’t need to take public transport, it’s that they weren’t encouraged to. It’s not that they didn’t want better jobs in bigger cities, it’s that they couldn’t.

On one hand having your parents close by meant relative ease and comfort, but on the other side it meant restrictions and less freedom.

You can’t have it all.

Yes I couldn’t just tell my parents to pick me here and drop me there. Buy me this and get me that. But on the flip side this meant I could travel around more. I could get a good job in a city further away. I could move out.

And as I walked towards the doorway of the warehouse, after 1 hour and 8 minutes I thought to myself which one do I prefer — comfort or freedom? If I could, would I trade in the relative freedom I get for the relative comfortothers have?

It didn’t even take a second to know what the answer was.

I whispered ‘Alhamdulillah’, turned the handle of the doorway and strode in.

It is very easy to look at another persons life and assume they have it better than you. A better family, a better friend, a better career.

But no one can have it all in this life. Everything comes with a price.

You might have the most righteous child, but they aren’t the extroverted loud child you always wanted to have. You might have the most fulfilling job out there, but their holiday policy sucks. You get some, you lose some. No one is living the perfect life because that is not the nature of this life. This is not Paradise.

But I think those who are the closest to gaining a sense of perfection in this life are those who focus on what they have been given by God and not what God gave others. Those who realise that God is Al Hakim (The Most Wise) and Al Aleem (The Most Knowing). And so every blessing He gave you is especially for you, because He knows you — what you want and need and most importantly, what is best for you.

And so instead of focusing on what God gave to others, think for a moment — would I really want to trade this package of blessings God gave me for someone else’s?