Love from a perspective: advice to a friend

I am a very private person, a very reserved one who hardly jumps into people’s affairs even if they are my friends. A friend of mine is at a crossroad with a very important life decision.  He had decided to marry his girlfriend. He sent me her picture and accompanying text in sympathetic tone: I will accept her.

Knowing what I know, this came as a surprise, that the economy is doing like this, doing like this… Beside the economic side, marriage is not all the roses that we think it is. In my own judgement he is making a very bad move.

I read the message and congratulated him. Since it is in reference to her mother’s death, I condoled him one more time and told him that I did so already at the time of her death. What he said kept ringing in my head. He had now settled. He made up his mind. But is that a sober decision?  Is that a choice from an independent point? What informed this final decision? I couldn’t shake off the questions swirling in my head.

Since he is my personal person, an ashratul-mubashshirina fil-jannat who cannot be ignored, I went back to WhatsApp two hours later to find answers to these questions. I can’t change anything, but I needed to be sure he is aware of what he is doing.

“Are you sure this is what you want or are you taking decision based on emotions? I have been doing a lot of thinking and decided to talk to you one more time on this.”

The rational me kicked in. I calculate everything. I do a quick cost-benefit analysis even in choosing a road to follow. I am so rational my life is boring and monotonous. No major risk takings nor huge outcome. Often, I look at myself and look at others: holy shit! No bizarre coincidences or unpredictable zigzagging.

Rational people are not being pessimists or doomsayers when they tend to look at the worst case scenario. They are just practical. I want him to be like me in a positive way and believe in cause and effect and human agency. That’s why God created Laws of the Universe aka Laws of Physics. 9 out of 10, human actions play significant role in the outcome of things. Miracle works only in few occasions. When you go to sleep and wake up, it is God in charge because there is nothing that you can do about.

So, I believe that we shouldn’t make important life decisions based on emotions. Well, I know. I know we will be denuded of our humanity if we remove emotions from human spaces. We will be robotic, calculating, transactional, and cold, lacking in sense of community. Which is bad, granted, but in trying to preserve our humanity we shouldn’t be irrational to a fault.

 “Do you really love her or are you pitying her because her mother died? Remember, if you are pitying her note that you are not guilty nor responsible for her mother’s death. Even if you truly love her and want to marry her, are things happening in the natural course of things or are you altering and rushing things for her own sake?”

I am not trying to stop him from doing a charitable work but he sounds like a martyr than a genuine love. I am considering his mental health and material well-being in the long term. You make one jump into the ditch, it takes several to get out of. But time heals everything. You shouldn’t embark on this guilt tripping and harm yourself in the process. She has a boyfriend with financial capabilities. If you are thinking about her love for you, time will heal everything. She will get married and everything will be alright. You may get what Allah plans for you. Allah’s plan, in this case, is to allow things take their natural course. If Allah wishes you to marry her, then he will eventually give you something better soonest.

“I suggest you leave things take their natural course even if you truly love her. If you go with this decision believing you are righteously doing a good work, that you can be patient, that you can bear the pain, then there will be time when all of these feelings will fade. By then you are already neck-deep in hole.”

I want him to see things from this perspective.