He is there for me...

As a designer, I deal with the most subjective thing in the whole universe; ideas. Frequently, to have an idea is not the problem. As a human being, as long as we use our little brain… we will at least have a bit of an idea about any particular thing that we are concerned about… that is why "everyone is a critic"... When one dissatisfies with one thing, he tends to suggest a different way of doing it… or just simply criticizes and says that thing could be done better… and designers, do that most of the time… if you are a designer, any kind… be it architect, fashion designer, artist etc… you must find it hard not to criticize things around you… from the color of walls to the placement of serviettes in a restaurant table that you went to. Even though sometimes, you don’t actually spill out your thoughts but your brain is always talking. However, to realize an idea is a different story… that’s the reason why we hate criticism as much as we love to give it… the most common line to response to a critic, in this case a negative one is “if you could do it better, you do it”… that is a really rude one though, anyway, remember to always thank your critic because sometimes, by saying thank you will make the critic feel bad for giving you a negative criticism…

Anyway… that is not the whole story… I guess it wouldn’t be me without going around the bushes to get into the main point…. If you read my last post titled; this post should be my assignment no15… you might be able to sense my despair… yes, I was in such despair because I had one really great idea in my head but I kept failing to translate it into my design project… I tried and tried and tried to get a right scheme that able to speak my idea, but none seemed working…and...

I almost wish that I could just drop the studio… but hey, I’m a sponsored student yo! I can’t afford to do that and… I really want to graduate for my degree this December…

Why make such a big fuss, it’s just a subject?

Well, if you are not in a design business…. That is a reasonable question, but if you are in… grrr… I should  “ketuk kepala” you ten times… It’s a design studio. It’s the main subject for the whole course… Otherwise, I wouldn’t feel so miserable like I did.


So, what do you do when you are in a misery?

I ranted, I whined…ranted, whined, ranted…and whined…. Then I realized, I didn’t benefit a thing from doing that, yet it hurts even more, like in my case, it made me feel so stupid, as if I don’t suit to be an architect at all… then I contemplated and realized how ignorant was I to forget Him who makes thing ups and downs as a test to us, His servants. How ignorant was I, to forget… how much reward, I could obtain by just being patient and submit to His test… how ignorant was I, to forget… how stronger I could become if I manage to breeze through the test… and how ignorant was I to forget, the great idea that I already had, though I fail to make it real… is from Him… How ignorant was I to forget, those few semesters that I had breezed through with His helps….

But He remembers me…


One moment, out of my despair… I leafed through Quran pages… then I came into a verse…

“And seek help in patience and As-Salat (the prayers) and truly, it is truly hard except for Al-Khashi’un” 2:45

First of all, I just want to make it clear that I’m not going to elaborate on the verse as I don’t have enough knowledge to do that… secondly, I’m sure… you could pinpoint many other verses that could really sooth a heart .. But this is my story… my eyes caught that verse when I was so in need of a consolidation… and that really consolidates me…


I keep a booklet of selected supplications from Al-Quran and authentic hadith… well, I have a plan to memorize the whole thing… but, my bad… I am lazy… anyway… I’ve abandoned the booklet quite a while…but it is actually sitting just next to my bed… One night, it caught my eyes, I took it and at the front cover it is written…

“When my servants ask you about Me, I am always near. I answer their prayers when they pray to Me. The people shall respond and believe in Me, in order to be guided” (2:186)

Well, it would be too blind not to notice the verse on the cover prior to that… but if you were in my situation, you could feel that it felt so different…

Hence, I turned whines into prayers…


I like to do work while listening to music… and I was so bored with my songs collection… so one of those miserable days… I searched for new songs that I could listen to… then, I found a song titled InshaAllah by Maher Zain…


[sorry about the commercial at the beginning and the end of it, couldn’t find any other link]
So, I guess, you could tell how meaningful the song is… at least to me… and it means more than just for my school problem…


There was a book that I really wanted to read… but I only got a chance to read it last week. The book titled is The Alchemy by Paul Coelho… well you might have read it already, It is quite a famous book with Sufism influences… however… there are many good moral values in the book… I don’t plan to write a review about it as I guess you could find a better one if by any chance you are interested in it… but, in that book… there is a phrase that says [pretty much like this, I’m lazy to look up for it]… “Success is the eighth attempt out of seven failures… “Well, I’m sure it sounds better in the book than my broken-unfix able English… anyway…. That quote is really something! It is sort of a really good motivation… well indeed, the whole book is… then I realized, It might take 20 attempts to taste the success… all I need to do is just to keep on trying…


Another, one day… well, you should be able to tell how long I’ve been struggling with my design… I was on facebook… someone posted a link… and I’m not going to talk on it… you need to watch it, then you know…

That made me feel so so so ungrateful… yet… very very very motivated…


Could you see it?

All the above… they are not coincidences… Allah sends down mercy and helps in the most subtle way that most of the times… we, human… do not realize… so, we don’t appreciate it… we neglect and forget to thank Him… but when calamity strikes… we look up to heaven and question Him and blame Him for all… Last class… things finally go well for me… … I finally found the right thing to do to realize the idea…well, at least for now… I still have a few more weeks to work on the idea… refine it and develop it further… but at least, for now… my tutors are happy [she even said; it worth the struggle… you see, I was really struggling] and I’m happy…Alhamdulillah and where is that from? Of course… it is Him… The Lord of Everything… He gave me idea, and it’s got to be Him who could tell me how to translate it into my design…

I’m afraid that I might be ungrateful… I really do… I’m afraid that I might forget Him when everything is smooth and sound… when indeed… He is always there… for me and for you… if we believe…


Subhanallah, Alhamdulillah, Lailahailallah, Allahu Akbar….