What's meant to be, will be

How often do you realize that everything that happens to you in a day are according to Allah’s plan?

At many times, we tend to neglect this fact. We tend to think that what happens in a day is how we plan it to be. And even if things do not go as planned, it is not a big deal simply because you don’t really mind what happens. For example, you plan to have toast with jam and butter for breakfast today. But when you go to the kitchen, you realize that you’ve run out of bread. Thus you end up making yourself some ‘cekodok pisang’ instead.

In this case, undeniably, Allah has planned that you will have the delicious ‘cekodok pisang’ for breakfast instead of the toast. But on our side, as a human being, we don’t always or directly relate this to Allah’s plan. I mean, you don’t go and say to yourself, “Oh, Allah wants me to eat ‘cekodok pisang’ this morning instead of toast. Alright Allah, ‘cekodok pisang’ it is”. Most of the time, when you find out that you’ve run out of bread, you’ll just go to your kitchen larder and see what else is available for you to eat that morning. In every day cases, when the stuffs that you need to make your plan work is not there, you’ll just go and find another alternative. No big deal, hey?


But there are also some events in our daily life that are more important and have bigger impact on us if it does not go as planned. It can be of any sort; the public transport breaks down so you arrive late to work, you spill some curry on your shirt or ‘ tudung’ during lunch hour so you spend the rest of the day in an untidy state, your laptop breaks down when you’re almost done with a 3000 words essay and you have not saved it yet, you have to miss a very important meeting because something bad happened to your family that you have to attend to, and many other things. (p/s: I’m sorry most of the examples are related to work..kind of have forgotten how student life is..hihi). But, you just name it.


And, when these important, planned things do not go as it should, what do we usually do? Most of the time, I believe, we tend to find something to blame. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t have let my brother use my car yesterday, now it’s not working well anymore’. ‘Oh, my roommate is such a careless person! How could she switch off my laptop’s plug at such a critical time! ‘. ‘Bummer, why does my son have to be sick at this hour! This meeting is so important for me to get the contract!’. And so on and so forth. And for most people also, there will always be some’ %!!*$#$%#’ words before the lines I’ve stated above –which is obviously not a good thing to practice, so please keep it to yourself.


Now, when these kinds of things happen, it is seldom that we relate it back to the fact that everything goes as Allah’s plan. Whereas, as a believing muslim, this is what should come first to our mind. Whatever happens to us in our daily lives is planned by Allah. So, while we have our own plans for the day, if it does not fit with what Allah has planned for us, then it won’t happen. And when Allah plans for other than what we want, there is always a reason behind it. At times, we can see the reason there and then, but at other times, we can only see the ‘hikmah’ of such event years after.







I remember watching one of the Phineas and Ferb series on Disney channel. If you’ve ever watched this cartoon, you’ll know that the whole theme of it is that, Phineas and Ferb will invent something so great, and their sister Candace will always try to spill on them to their mum. However, at every time, without fail, the invention will disappear somewhere before the mother gets to see it. Well, in one of this episode, Phineas and Ferb created a time machine of which they could move to the future and to the past. At one point, the machine went to the future. And when Candace in the future found out about this, she took that opportunity to go back to the past where her brothers built a massive roller coaster and investigated how the roller coaster vanished before her mother got to see it. She found the perfect time to spill on her brothers and took that chance. So she changed the past, her mother saw this invention and thought of how dangerous her kids imagination is. Since then, the education system changed and kids were no longer allowed to be creative anymore. Happily, this Candace from the future travelled back to where she belonged, but when she got there, everything was totally different. There was disaster everywhere and the bad Doofenschmirtz ruled the world. She was totally surprised. She found another Candace of that future and asked what happened. And so the history went back to when she managed to spill on her brothers and kids were prevented from being creative etc etc. So, she went back to the past to fix this and told the Candace of that time to give up spilling on her brothers. The reason being is that, by changing what was meant to happen could result in a different future altogether.


So you see, when things happen in the will of Allah, then it is meant to be and nothing could stop if from happening. Most of the time, as human being, when things divert from our plan, there will always be the ‘kalaulah’ phrase. Right? Ok, in English, it’s “if only”. “If only she did this, then I would have that”. “If only he gave this, then that would have happened” etc. But believe me people, there is no such thing as ‘if only’, or ‘kalaulah’. And even if the word does exist, then the only thing that could happen is something worst than what had already happened. Do you know what I mean?


Where I work, it is important that we go offshore as the number of hitches will affect our KPI’s. The more hitches, the better the KPI. So, I started seeing this trend of people being jealous of another because they have more hitches than them. People start saying bad thing about others because of this. Or, some people would be so worried about it that they try to take away opportunities of others. And this isn’t a good practice. What I will always tell my colleagues is that, if you were meant to go, then you will go. If you were not meant to go, than no matter whether you’ve booked your ticket, or packed your bags or made a deal with the bosses, you just won’t go. That’s it. End of story. Fullstop. And like it or not, you’ve got to admit that it’s true. Right? Yeah, I can see heads nodding.


I’ve experienced that myself. I was supposed to go on an on job seismic training in Sarawak during the raya season. All the ticket booking has been done. I was all set to go. But at the very last moment, we were told that there is not enough places on board (POB) for a female, as all the rooms are a 4-man room. So, unless I want to share bedroom with guys, than I can’t go. And so, the ticket was cancelled and I get to celebrate raya with my family. So this is one of my experiences where Allah's plan take over what I planned. I’m sure all of you have your own experiences right?


Try looking back at your past experience and see how many times Allah’s plan has taken its way above your plan. Also reflect back on how these changes has decorated your future. It’s ok to feel a bit depressed, or sad or angry. We are, after all, human beings. But let’s not make these emotions take over us. And try making it a habit from now on to always be thankful and patient when things do not go as plan. Install this belief that Allah knows best. That Allah has something else laid out for your future. Hold firmly to this belief. You’ll see how calmly you can take and adapt to changes in the future.



And if you have your own experience to share, by all means, please do.