THE BATTLE WITHIN YOU

The hardest battle is the battle within you.

IB Final exam is just around the corner. The exam is too close that the stacks of white exam papers can be seen already. Moving closer to May 4th, many of us (supposedly) start cramming themselves in the room, struggling with past year’s papers and all that, sharpening their knowledge and theories, memorizing as many important formula as possible, gazing to midnight stars with hand still holding IB Guide For Biology…Yes, yes… Working hard for one main purpose- to score IB so that I can go overseas. Yes, yes…true, true. Good, good.


Ladies and Gentlemen: this is not the story of mine. Not even a story of a friend of mine. This is just a story I read when I was 8 years old and the story is so significant to me that I remember it until today. This is a story of wisdom and love. It’s just a bedtime story but I believe, this is one of the best tazkirahs for me.

This is a story of a little boy named John. John is a 10-year-old boy with blue eyes and yellow wavy hair. John lives in a village near a beautiful beach at the north of Ireland. However, John is not really a happy boy. He doesn’t have many friends, make it, any friend. No one wants to get close to him. When the teacher brought them to play at the beach, John was left behind and was not even invited to any birthday party of his classmates. Why are they doing such thing to John? What’s wrong with John?

Oh my dear, John is actually a very hot tempered boy. He hates to smile. He hates to talk with others. For him, everyone around him is bad and they never try to understand him. He thinks that he has done no wrong and people should not treat him that way.

One day, there comes an uncle named Peter who once lived in the village. Uncle Peter came back to visit his friends and relatives. Like John, Uncle Peter possesses such a beautiful pair of blue eyes with red cheeks and round puffy face. Everyone loves Uncle Peter. His friends invited him to a lot of birthday parties even though he has left the village for quite a long time. Looking at how people treat Uncle Peter, John felt so angry and frustrated. He now hates Uncle Peter more than anyone else. Uncle Peter knows John dislikes him. He can see from John’s burning eyes.

One day, Uncle Peter came to John’s house and invited him for a walk. Along the walk, Uncle Peter told John a lot of stories about the sailors and army and also the submarines. Those stories, indirectly, strengthen their friendship. John started to feel better. He never knows that to have good friends can actually give him such a happy mood. Eventually, they arrived at Uncle Peter’s house. But John still refused to smile. He gave a hatred look to the old man.

“Come on John. Let’s go inside. Let us see what I got for you inside...” Uncle Peter smiles from ear to ear. His blue eyes glitter like sunshine on the ocean.

Inside the house, there was a big beautiful mirror with wooden frame.

“John, go on, take a look at the mirror” says Uncle Peter. “Go on...” He repeats.

John steps forward and look inside the mirror. Inside the mirror, he saw his face.

“There’s nothing special! It’s just my face!” John shouted.

“Look again my dear…Look very deeply into the face…” Slowly Uncle Peter touched John’s shoulder and the boy looked back into the mirror.

As John looked closely to the image, the face started to change. From John’s face, the image changed to a face of a bad teenage boy with hatred look and frown face. John was so irritated by his look. Then, the face changed again. It became a face of an adult, a very bad adult. His eyes were not shining like Uncle Peter’s. The man’s face was so unhappy, as if he got the whole world’s problems on his shoulder. “I hate this guy’s face!” John said with hatred. Then, the face started to change again. Now, a face of an old folk appeared. His look was so frightening. He looked like a bad witch. His frown thin lips and difficult eyes seem so stressful. He looked so unhappy. John was so frighten by the old man’s look that he closed his eyes with his hands immediately and cried.

“Why are you crying my son?” Uncle Peter held John’s hands.
“Who’s that man, that old man? He looks so bad…I’m so scared!” said John.
“He is you…” answered Uncle Peter with calm.

John was so shocked hearing the answer. He can’t believe it. He shouted at Uncle Peter, “You are lying to me! You fat liar!I wanna go home!” Uncle Peter smiled with patience.
“Dear John, I am not lying. All the faces you saw just now are your faces in the future if you don’t change your attitude now. The boy, the man, and the old folk are actually you. Can’t you see they all got blue eyes and wavy yellow hair like you? John, my dear, what you do today will affect your future. Whoever you are today, determines who you are in the future. If you don’t change now, no one will want to be your friends and you’ll be a very unhappy teenager later, than you will be a very unhappy man in the future as you don’t have friends and no one will marry you and finally you will die as a very unhappy old man that has nothing in his life except his frown lips and hatred look. John, go and smile for the rest of the world is yours when you love and enjoy being you.”

John felt so sad and angry with Uncle Peter’s words. He knows Uncle Peter was right but he just cannot accept it. He ran out of the house and went to his house. In his room, he cried so hard realizing that Uncle Peter was so right about everything. John stood up and walked to a mirror in his room. He looked into the mirror. Then, John smiled. He smiled for the first time in his life. He smiled and felt the relief in him. He smiled and he saw a very beautiful pair of blue eyes started to shine on his face. He smiled and realized that he actually, has a very beautiful pair of red lips and red cheeks. John is actually a very handsome boy.

Since that day, John always smiles. He never shouts and scolds anymore. He has a lot of friends and everyone loves him. The End.

See, life is as easy as changing your face from frowning to smiling. It’s just the matter of either you want it or not.

Life is daily pop quizzes. The questions are prepared by Allah and the guide book for study is Al Quran and Sunnah, and everyday we answer our quizzes based on what we understand from these two holy references. We never know our true results until the Day of Judgment. But Allah knows everything. He ‘marks’ our papers and gives us our marks and grades. What we do today, of course, affect the day after tomorrow and eventually the future, but the most important thing for us to ponder upon, what we do today on this ‘dunya’ will later affect what we will face in the ‘akhiroh’. Wallahu a’lam


(I dedicated this post to all my friends in KMB especially to my tomato-Look Forward!… trust me, we all gonna make it…inshaAllah ^_^)