Life is (not) a competition

Life

Imagine yourself in a running race. It could be a marathon or sprint. With rewards of everything that you ever wanted, in front of you, as the prize. Your rivals? Oh wait, there is no rival. What? How could be? Apparently, your rival is yourself. They are: your nafs and bad whispers on your ears. They are trying to make you give up the race, slow you down, fail utmost.

And we don’t even see the finish line. Remember? it could be a marathon with long time of life till old age, or sprint, where accident just happened in teenage. Well it doesnt sounds much like a competition isnt it?

Let’s see competition in it’s definition. An event which consists of 2 or more parties with reward can not be shared. Hold on! Rewards can not be shared? Sounds limited. While on the other hand, paradise is unlimited. And it is not shared, nothing is decreased for you. It is freaking even bigger than you ever imagined. How is that possible? See, world’s beauty is a small preview of paradise’s pleasure. So it is unique for one another. Is it still cosidered as a competition then?

Win and Loss

Winning and losing is also an aspect on the table. Winning, could mean you defeat someone else. You being the best of all other competitor. Lost means you lost from those competitors. Now, every human are in this competition. Then, who won? Prophets? Yes, they have certain qualities can not even compared to us. But, that i not the case. Our competitors are not other humans. If it is another human, then we will try our best to take them down, to make them not getting paradise, but it’s in contrast right? More people you invite for goodness, the better human you become. it is encouraged to all Muslim to invite and gathering and helping others in achieving paradise. Because again, it won’t decrease your own prize. It is not limited. Even it will add up to your own goods. So, back to the competitors. The real competitors, who will take you down, is nafs and evil’s whisper. You have to take them down instead. Giving your most potential to be the best in defeating them. Imagine it as a debate competition. Your heart saying take option goodness, your nafs wants something else, then evil’s whispering badness. Now, your decision makes the point. If you enhance and keep strong on your heart, you could score. But if you are weak and giving up on your nafs, you lost a score. Of course it comes with real struggle. But hey, life is not a simple game. This is huge and so real big thing. So ofcourse this would be some kind of difficult test. You won if your heart override the other competitors, if you defeat the bad. You lost if you surrender to your competitor and let them rule you.

How to win?

Of course, to win is to defeat the other competitors, by making huge gap between the plus scores and minus score. Interesting is, the score is not considered as just win or lost: 1-0. It is  more of uncounted score. A small good deeds such as put aside rock from the road, got high score. And more small thing that we dont consider as matter issue. But also, the more struggle, harder the challenge, then bigger the rewards/score we get. Like if someone hurt us, then we forgive them. Or some tragedy happened to us. Where it is a unique strive for each person, the score will be bigger. Well, only God knows, and the angels who write down  our deeds.

So, is it or is it not a competition?

For some aspects. yes it is a competition. Where it has its own winning and losing state, rewards prize, and the challenge itself. Yet, those aspects is not in worldly term as we know it is. The winning prize is paradise, unlimited pleasure, no need to share since people has their own prize. Losing the competition means you did not have enough good score or even disqualified. The competitors are not other human, yet it is your own nafs and bad whispers. Now, it’s your choice. Do you want to win the prize, or let yourself defeated. The choice is yours.