I watched as she picked up the pieces that fell off her plate, almost as soon as they did.
"You don't have to" I said, "or atleast you could wait till you're done"
She smiled, and said, "wouldn't there be too much of a mess by then, atleast I could start with the crumbs"
Later as i saw her off, i thought of what a beautiful person she was. I wondered what made her so beautiful, how one person could embody so much goodness, & wondered how i too could be like that. Then i realized the answer was right there in her words.
Virtues, they say are the foundation of a person's moral soundness. It is that which sums up to make you a good person, that which reflects true beauty.
You can never find a truly beautiful person with an ugly character, & with virtues it's alot more than just being a nice person, it's about having a well-established sense of values and morals that guide your way of living; your actions, intentions, perspectives & your dealings with everyone including yourself.
We can sit and think of all that is wrong with this world, but we cannot begin to change them until we start from our ownselves.
I know there have been times I've sat and cracked my head worrying about what our society is slowing becoming and how i can help my younger ones and kids in sha Allaah to still be people of good morals, upright, with a sense of right & wrong in spite of everything that is going on around them but it still comes down to my own self first.
For how can you share what you do not have? How can you teach what you do not know? & how can you know what you do not recognize?
The line between right & wrong, good & bad is being blurred more and more by the day. So much so that we have parents who no longer scold their kids for certain wrongs, because well...they don't see anything wrong with them. And it starts with simple things like, taking your plates to the kitchen yourself when you're done eating, taking responsibility for your mistakes, avoiding that little white lie that won't cost too much, greeting that elder that just passed you by, being fair in your judgement between two people, even when the one who's right is not who you know, paying up your debt on time, being cautious with your words....and the list goes on...it starts with the little things we overlook...they are what build up into beautiful virtues that make the world a better place...for if you were wondering what you could ever do to change the world, the answer was always right with you...it starts with you...making yourself a better person will inevitably make the world a better place because you are a part of it...
So start with the crumbs. Start with the little things no one pays attention to, look within & start clearing out all the ugly habits that are of no use to you. Look again and bring back to the surface, all that goodness that was hiding there somewhere. The world may not acknowledge the little good deeds, but they build up to become the big ones that make you a good person. And the world may also not scold the little bad habits, but they also build up to make you an ugly person no matter how much physical beauty there is.
This Series will in sha Allah be about helping us to recognize the virtues we need to revive in ourselves and help others to gain as well, through examples, and lessons i hope that we all finish reading having learned a thing or two to make us even better in sha Allah...
I'll end today's episode with something i'll like to keep in mind;
Though we cannot be perfect, we can be good. And what makes a person good is not being free of faults or mistakes, but having the will to constantly improve, to learn from mistakes, & to choose right over wrong everyday, for the rest of their lives.
