Life as a Battlefield

Jibran Tahir

Life as we know it, is a series of sorrow & happiness, ups & downs, the pavement of life is sometimes rough as thorns & sometimes smooth as silk. Life as we know it, is more complicated for a person who is fair & just, either he is forced to become the opposite or a shattered & low-spirited living being. 

A soldier or a warrior never returns clean, similarly our battles of life, breaks us, melts us & molds us into something we never thought we will be year ago. These are the battles from which we learn our true potentials. We learn who our true companion is & who is getting unmasked. We get a glimpse of a fact that we came into this world alone, we will return, alone. When we find ourselves within the depths of hell chained with a blade wire & continuously getting beaten by a red hot pointed hammer, & we struggle our way out of such misery, we realize that it’s a will granted to us by the Creator of the world. 

Early battles of our lives come without a siren, unaided & unarmed. It doesn’t matter what your age is, you may get trapped into it when you can hardly speak or think for yourself, such battles are the first ones but unfairly painful usually provoked by the ones you are born to, while you are at one side of the battlefield trying to get yourself together, you may see your own guardians or any one of them on the other side firing cannons at you, cannons like child abuse both physical & emotional, abandonment, attempt of murder, & various mistreatments. Where sometimes the guardians are so busy fighting with each other or their own battles that you as a child become subject to a collateral damage that no one understands. 

Some wars from these ages are unprovoked, being born as an orphan, handicapped or poor are some painful instances. If you had this portion of life peaceful and normal & you grew up unaffected consider yourself fortunate. These battles even if won, damages a major portion of one’s life & their side effects; as they say that the wounds heal but scars remain, they actually shape our personalities & our very nature. We may appear normal, but the damage has been done & we are still fighting with it, with ourselves.

It doesn’t hurt much when someone unknown tries to mess up your life, we usually expect that from a person who has been a total stranger to us. Life becomes a living hell when a best friend from the childhood, or any person in terms of any relation blood or not, unmasks their true self, and gifts you with a heartbreak & punishes you for being pure & loyal. There are some people who are only with you for a purpose, when that purpose ends, so their loyalty, then there are people, close to you, who seeks pleasure by pointing out your weaknesses, making you feel bad about yourself. You will find a very small ratio of people standing by your side, pointing out your capabilities & making you feel better about yourself. Humanity is so weak nowadays that a person asks his existence that whether to be, or not to be, a human, in a fear of being shattered or double crossed by someone. 

Nowadays, love is seen as a greater evil, made fun of, seen as a fiction. Truth is, it’s not love but a person who is a greater evil, who made a joke out of love. They say chivalry is dead, the truth is that it has been murdered with bare hands. It gets murdered when love finds lust, or greed, when love is taken for granted or seen as boring or average just because it’s true. It doesn’t matter what the gender is, majority of the people don’t get sincere from the fear of getting their heart broken. The worst part is, we fear love, our hearts are getting smaller, we have forgotten karma & the fact that no matter what happens, what goes around surely comes around. The victim on the other hand, hollow, alone, depressed & shattered either turns into an evil himself or gives up hope, or move on but, they don't stay the same.

These demons of heartbreak tearing their victim, limb by limb, like a piece of flesh barely hanging with another, person being a victim of all or any one of them, these demons sucks a youth out of their victim. You tend to keep your inner struggles to yourself, because sharing them out even turns out harmful for you because again, humanity is at its worst. This fact further shatters you & takes you to a point where you become someone unfit or different for normal people, victim despite all the crowd around, feels alone, gets hungry for love, sensitive like a toddler or a very old individual seeking attention. We are talking about a victim who is still struggling & haven’t turned into a demon, victim refusing to lose hope, despite all the depression & insomnia still laughing out loud in front of the world because he knows that the world laughs upon the damned, they only make their pains & heartbreaks intense. 

Story doesn’t end here, why a victim is symbolized as a warrior? A baby is born, struggles to crawl, then to stand up on his feet, struggles to speak & learn his surroundings, grows up struggles to score good in studies, further grows up to be a good person, struggles for the ones close to him, today being a good human is a huge struggle itself, through all the demons we talked about, he further grows up & struggles to be recognized & further struggles for his future, for his dreams & at the point of establishment he further struggles for his family onwards, life is a continuous battlefield, everything you want to achieve is a war, until you are on your death bed further struggling to recover but eventually you don’t & give up, die, perhaps that’s the point where your struggles end.

There are many other demons one face, such as health, an individual suffering from cancer at the last stage knows the worth of life, yes!!! The worth of this battlefield. Some wars are provoked by us, when we make a wrong decision that ruins our lives, trust wrong people, break someone’s heart or double cross someone, some wars you fight as a true warrior but some wars are provoked by you, getting back at you in the form of karma. Every form of war, once disfigures an individual & leaves him a choice to either stay strong or to become devil’s favorite.      

So, what would you do? Give up? Turn into a demon yourself? Turning to a demon is common, even then the struggles don’t end. Living through this battlefield requires a lot of pain, sacrifices, tragedies & sorrows, trust me whether you once were a true lover or a best friend, an obedient child or a follower of a saint, someone desperately struggling to achieve his dreams or someone who finds comfort in spreading happiness & joy, no matter how hard your struggles are, you are not alone, you are backed by the most powerful force in the universe you know as God.

Remember this golden rule of thumb, being fair & just always pays off, tomorrow, or decades after, you will be rewarded, with double indemnity in life & afterlife both. Every movie you watch, it shows a very small portion where the protagonist is happy, that portion is at the very beginning or at the end of the movie, that’s life in realistic examples. The entire movie is spent showing the protagonist proving his enemies wrong & emerging victorious, that’s what exactly you have to do, for the sake of you and the people who believes in you, you have to wear the helmet, suit up with that shiny armor, raise your sword & unleash yourself upon anything that stand in your way. 

Your enemies, & the people who took you for granted, & the ones who were just there to see you suffer, surrounding the arena, you have to show them the greatness & power of the gladiator, you will lose your strength. You will lose your spirit, the crowd will also discourage you, & only few of them will try to man you up but in a crowd of many haters you will hardly hear them, your shield will break, you will get bruised to the extent of death your armor will feel heavy on your injured body & you will have to throw it away, but at the end of the day its upon your will that will decide the result of that battle you are fighting, demon after demon, opponent after opponent, there will be a point where you may face your alter ego, your demon, YOU. Strong belief upon God & the way nature rewards, is only your key to success, once you lost that belief, turned yourself into a demon this crowd would cheer for, might be a temporary victory, but you will lose yourself & the purpose you were born for, you will lose all the purity & will be surrounded by the demons like you & your day & night will be spent wondering which demon you have to bite first & the fact that the painful misery called hell awaits you. If you have to die, die as a gladiator, an inspiration for the upcoming warriors. Despite all the damages, despite all the tragedies of a battlefield, if you fought fair & stood your ground the destiny is yours, all yours. You may get dragged through the pavement of thorns, you may get tested beyond your will, but always remember, your victory only depends upon how strong & faithful you are, turning yourself into a monster you once fought or stepping aside from the battlefield will get you nowhere, you have to fight, you have to win. We usually see people, in a role of a villain, happy & fulfilled, that’s a short lived story. Pure heart & pure determination always pays off, major difference between a human & animal is that human earns, animal snatches. 

Side effects from the battles we fought, they never leave, depressions, insomnias, anxieties, psychological disorders, sensitivities, get them off you, as soon as you can & seek a professional help immediately as you have to prepare yourself for upcoming challenges & these side effects will only slow you down.  

All of these scars, they are gold medals, as a memory of a war you once won, reminding you how strong you were, how against all odds you emerged victorious & why should an enemy fear you. You are a sole master of your motivation & happiness, the stronger you are the happier you are, the happier you are, you will go against every odd with a smile on your face & challenge your challenges.

At every point of your life, make memories, memories that cheers you up, heals you, so by the time you turn old sitting on your retirement chair, you can have this, smile of satisfaction, that yes, you lived, you fought, you won. While all good things come to an end so do the bad things, eventually. Hardships are a test meant to make us stronger, understand the pain of our fellow human beings & bring us closer to our Creator. This is a fact that no matter how pious or sinful you are, you will always be rewarded for your purity, you will have a happy ending. Honor, dignity, courage & nobility is encouraged for a reason, no matter how wicked the world is, you are to pay & answer for your deeds. Let the devil laugh at you as much as he can, if there will be someone with a final laugh that would be you. 

Spread love & peace, heal others in pain & that would heal you too, wish well for others, neither be selfish or totally lose yourself behind people, love yourself, you are beautiful, you have everything, while for some people you might be nothing but a mess, but for some people you are ideal & everything, know yourself & your values, we all are struggling, no matter rich or poor, fortunate or not we all are struggling & this will go on till our very last breath. Grasp the rope of positivity & be a source of positivity for your fellow warriors as well. Acts of Humanity is a huge form of worship, loving His creation is also a huge form of worship.    

A strong warrior never gives up, upon the fight nor the hope. The day he gave up on any of them, turned into a monster that he was up against, he is not a warrior anymore but a force against some other true & a strong beloved warrior.