When you are the salve of your desires you spin around pleasing one need after the other but end up walking on a treadmill that takes you nowhere close to relief. The haunting truth is that instead of feeling fulfilled as you seek those pleasures, you reap nothing but chilling emptiness and utter desolation. When moderation is the key to legitimate delight, an excess drags you to defiling the restless soul imprisoned in that body, whirling like a poor helpless bird banging its frail body against the bars of its cruel cage and lost in its gloom. As we fail to soothe that soul and help it heal, we add salt to its open wounds as we go for temporary pseudo satisfaction. This is how all addictions start, and this is how they keep escalating into uncontainable levels. Poor, very poor, and pathetic indeed are those addicts. They need all possible help and reach out for it instead of digging deep inside to reconnect with their estranged souls. They walk like ghosts with horrid secrets that they carry along on their long path of pain. They keep falling when they stop believing that they still can. They give up on the hope that they are still worthy of the soul that is created to be pure no matter what they do to base it. They refuse to believe that there is good inside and shut their eyes in complete desperation. But we are not allowed to fall into that endless pit of despair. The All-Merciful that created us says in the Qur’aan what is interpreted as, “Do not despair of relief from Allah; surely none despairs of relief from Allah except the disbelieving people.” (Yusuf: 87). We have to believe in the mercy that is bound to come our way if we struggle for it. We are created to be strong and to beat all odds and falling short of that would take us back to crippling frames of thought. The choice here is very clear; to opt for the easy way out and bear the shame, guilt and loathing of over-indulgence or to tread on the rocky way of striving again and again to reach the safe shores of lasting peace and serenity.
