Mirza Yawar Baig – The purpose of life is NOT to be happy
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A lot of our Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam ala shuffelin be able mousseline Muhammad Rasool Allah is Allah Allah Allah who I know it was over you send them to Steven. Oh my bad.
My brothers and sisters,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great thinker and author, and poet. He said, the purpose of life is not to be happy.
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
It may be that
Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
the purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I'm sitting here on a cold, very wet morning, it's raining.
And it's the sun is nowhere inside and it's cold. Waiting for the garbage trucks today's the day when both our trash and the recycle waste goes to trucks come.
And every
this time of the year, we give the tow truck drivers some sweets. So you get these very nice chocolate covered arm and centered sweets in Costco, which come only at this Christmas, New Year's season time.
So we get
a bag each. And it's pretty pretty, pretty large bags of these sweets, one each for the garbage truck drivers and one for our posts. It's called the mail delivery person.
The days of the postman, or the mailman have gotten mail delivery person, so the military person.
And we do this every year. And
it got to the point where they actually wait for this there. They tell us that you are the only people to do this and we wait for this. And the mail delivery person she said I take it I take this to our
to this to the post office. And we share this with all the people
the purpose of life is to make a difference. It doesn't matter how big a difference this is something which we get sometimes confused about. What can I do as one person but the reality that only we as one person can do something.
A loss of our data centers into this world not to be happy Allah send us into this world to again make a difference because Allah subhanaw taala said come to Cairo, Medina, Ohio rejet leanness,
you are the best people extracted, selected for the benefit of others, for the benefit of other people.
As soon as as an upset the best of you is the one who is the most beneficial to the people.
He said to the best of you who is the one who is the most beneficial to the people. Now you might say well, what do I have against happiness, nothing at all, nothing at all. And here when we say you are not sent into this world to be happy or the purpose of life is not to be happy as Earl Vallco Waldo Emerson said
All we're saying here is that this is not the purpose of life.
People who do meaningful things, believe me, they are the happiest people in the world. They are happier than anybody else. Because they are happy doing something worthwhile doing something meaningful.
I read a beautiful
quote on Twitter, which incidentally, I'm planning to, once again get out of out of it for a couple of years. And then
I was prevailed upon to get back into it. But again, it's become extremely toxic. I don't so I really don't want to participate in it anymore. But anyway, that's that's an aside.
I have a beautiful thing
written by this taxi driver and I've read I've read this before so this is an older piece but it still remains very beautiful. This taxi driver said that I went to
I was I was I got a call. So I went to this house. I honked once and I waited and nothing happened I honk the second time.
And I waited, and nothing happened. And just as I was about to drive away, the door opened and a little tired lady came out,
wearing a spotted ginger dress, she looked like she was going to
do to charge or to fare or something or very spruced up very neat. And along with her, she had a plastic suitcase.
So the bands that I got out of the car, I went up there. I haven't looked into the house because the door was was open. And he said, the whole house, everything was beautiful, need clean. And all the furniture was covered up with sheets.
The lady shut the door, and she said, Can you help me carry the suitcase? And he said, Yes, of course. And I picked up the suitcase.
She held my hand and she came out. She said I'm 94.
And I'm going to the hospice. I have no relatives. And
there's no one I haven't my family. So I'm going to the hospice.
She the taxi there was a seat in the car, I put the suitcase in the back. And
as I started, I said, Where is the address? She gave the address? And she said, but can we go for a little drive before that? So he said, Sure, wherever you'd like to go. So she told him a route. And he said, This is not the shortest way to that address. So the lady says there is no I'm not in any hurry.
I just want to look at a few places where I have been in life.
So that actually that was I quietly shut the meter off. And we drove and she commented as we came to each place in one place, she said this is where
you I first met my husband. And this is the school that I went to and so on and so on. So they went to different places. And he said Eventually, we got to the hospitals. It was a like a little house with a portico. And he said I drove in there and two people came out and they look very solicitous. And they
they handled the lady very gently. They were very nice and kind. They took her inside. And he said then the door shut.
And I felt the door had shut on a life.
He said I drove around. He said I didn't take any more fairs that night, I drove around for a bit. And I as I drove around, he said I thought to myself, What if I had just hopped once and left?
What if I had hoped twice and then left?
What if this lady
this last journey of her life?
Literally, I mean, you know not the last journey as an after you die but before she died
if she was faced with this disappointment of she called a taxi and nothing happened.
I want to thank Allah subhanho wa Taala and I request you also to think about this in Tagalog and the smart intelligent that we come from a religion and a culture where you are not allowed and you are not supposed to leave people in the state.
A state where there is nobody for them.
Because of this Omarosa Salam said this almost like one body he didn't use this like one family think about disability was the on premise one body.
When one limb hurts, the whole body feels the pain.
We are not even allowed to leave somebody in the state where they are completely alone.
And they have to depend on the kindness of strangers. Of course Allah subhanaw taala find people to be kind to them. That's a different issue but our responsibility as Muslims
so my
takeaway and send away from this is go and meet the elders in your family. Go talk to them. People die of loneliness, not of any disease.
Die of loneliness. I come from a city where a lot
To the young people and young by young man, I mean, you know, now people, even the 50s and 60s,
they left the cities and they left and they went away to different places, different parts of the world, very nice, enterprising, and so on. So then they did well for themselves.
Now they go and visit their families, and I'm delighted for them.
But
for the greater part of the, the parents, and I'm talking especially about parents, their parents are alone.
Maybe they have cell phones, maybe some companion comes and goes, and so on. But they are alone. And I have seen them yearning for their children, they have money, then they're not short on money, because the children make sure, whichever handler they will make sure that the parents don't lack for anything materially. So they live in a nice house, and there's a car driver, there's a cook, and there is money, and so on and so forth. So they're not hurting by any of that. But they want the company of their children.
My submission to my brothers sisters is do what we have to do, I don't care what you have to write, do what you have to do, and make sure
that your parents are not left alone.
And then look at people who have no children, but who are parts who are also part of your family.
And ask yourself, what your duties towards them
is something which is very, very critical, very important for us to do is to
think of others, and see how they feel one of my dearest and most beloved nephews,
when he was in college, I think at that time, just just qualified high school, just finished high school or just into college.
I didn't see him for a few days. So as his father said, where is he where's he gone.
And I'm deliberately not mentioning his name, because I know he wouldn't want to be named. But
if he hears this, he knows I'm talking about him.
So as to data through Edison. So basically,
he said, he has gone to spend some time with this other friend of ours, who will also a good friend of his
whose wife passed away.
And he is alone. So your nephew has gone to spend some days with him?
Imagine I mean, this is the beauty of raising your children. I imagine how do you read I teach that to the to his dad. So Allah and Elena you need to be May Allah bless you for raising a child like this, who is concerned about somebody who's not even related, just a friend, but not just a friend, it's something which is so important to be concerned about others will send it as well, we have nothing as being against being happy. That's why I said I that what I'm saying. The purpose of life is not to be happy as, as Ralph Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
he's not against happiness. He's saying, Be happy for the right reasons. Because you and I know that many people are happy with with the toxicity, the very happy backbiting. They're very happy, getting drunk, they're very happy, hurting others, they're very happy, you know, fomenting
strife and conflict between people and creating all kinds of fitrah. So people are happy doing all kinds of stuff.
So if you say your purpose of life is to be happy, then that person who is happy being toxic, is fulfilling the purpose of his life as he thinks. But that is not the purpose of life, the purpose of life is to be good. The purpose of life is to be valuable the purpose of life is to be to is to be in service of people. The purpose of life is to do something worthwhile, which makes life worth living for others. And that makes you insanely happy. Believe me, it's one of the if there is nothing that makes you happier, than seeing somebody else happy. I felt this so many times in my life that the happiest moments of my life have been where somebody else smiled through tears,
because of what someone else did to them. And that's what I recommend to you. So think about what is it that I can do today, which will make somebody else happy? And then believe me, you will be the happiest person in the world. Or some of the 100 beginning rally he was named after Coronavirus.