To say that any of us can truly understand our deepest natures would at its best be a self-assuring statement and at its worst is a self-deceiving lie. For no matter who we are, what we do, the journey of self-discovery, of knowing ourselves continues to the very end of our lives in this world. However, He, The All Knowing, The Omnipotent, The Most Merciful has blessed us all an internal compass to guide us in this journey; and this internal compass dear reader, is are honesty to ourselves. What determines our direction in all matters of our lives is the extent of our truthfulness to us. Whether it is a professional matter or a personal affair, something to do with our individual selves or something which would impact our family and friends, our acquaintances, it revolves around our sincerity to ourselves, our conscience, and subsequently to others. For each and every one of us has the innate knowledge of right and wrong. The discernment of truth and falsehood has indeed been given to us from the moment of our birth and remains with us till the time of our death. Except when we begin to deceive ourselves so as not to admit our faults, mistakes, misunderstandings, or when we fail to curb our egos and humble ourselves to honestly embrace our flawed understanding of things, we are always guided by our sincerity to ourselves.
Admittedly, it is hard to tell when are we lying to ourselves and massaging our own egos and when are we lost in self-deprecating thoughts and sinking beneath their heavy weight. For in our own perspectives we are always right about everything we perceive and do. We naturally do not accept ourselves being wrong while knowing full well deep down that we are. It is precisely in times such as these that we need to sincerely confront ourselves and be guided by our conscience to emerge an upright and a sincere person.
Sincerity is thus sustained by our honesty to ourselves. We are as sincere as we are truthful to our conscience and as deceptive and insincere as we are deceptive to ourselves. Our insincerity is often spawned by the influences of those around us. Sometimes they boost our egos and we are blinded by a prejudice in our favor. Most of the times they make us belittle ourselves into feeling worthless and unimportant. Consequently, we either end up being so stubbornly arrogant that we end up ruining our bonds with others or find ourselves so convinced of our rejection by others that even when we find those who are genuinely affectionate to ourselves, our hearts are shrouded in doubt and distrust so that we fail to acknowledge their affection and eventually lose them to our distrust.
Truth of the matter is that the world we live in is bound by its ephemeral nature to be an illusory reality. As a result, the love we experience here and the loyalties we cherish, the friendship we hold so dear and the affection we so genuinely consider a food for our souls, are all merely a beautiful Mirage of a blissful but fictitious reality unless we learn to be sincere to ourselves. As such, our lives have to be cleansed of all uncertainties, our souls need to undergo a baptism of fire and betrayal, the pain of a broken trust, the agony of a disappointed faith, to truly comprehend the depth of our sincerity to ourselves, to others, and above all to Him Whose command it is to “say, my prayers, the rights of my sacrifice, my living and my dying, are all for Allah, the Lord of all the world’s!”[Surah Al Inam]
So the question dear reader is of our sincerity to ourselves. The more steadfastly truthful and sincere we are to ourselves, the lesser likelihood there is of us losing ourselves to our darker instincts which eventually ruin our lives, professions, and personalities. So let us not relish in our own self-righteousness or wallow in self-pity! Let us be true to ourselves with utmost sincerity in all aspects of our lives!