The heart and its investments

Those of us who know a little bit about business might be aware that the businesses run on investments. Basically, an investment is what a business spends its money and time on. The owner and the employees involved in the business always consider the ‘return on investment’ whenever they decide to take on a project.

Now imagine a business investing on a certain product. This product seemed to be profitable from the surface. However, a month down the line, the business suffers a loss. The business owner however, does not give up on the product and keeps on spending money on producing more of the product and its marketing. Even with all of it, the business keeps suffering from loss. If the owner keeps investing in that same product without any changes, what is going to happen to his business? Well, it doesn’t take much for us to comprehend that he will run out of business and may even go bankrupt. Because the owner is not getting any return on his investment.

This is something many of us do. Not necessarily with our time and money. But with our emotions. We may end up liking a person. Or we may excessively love a close family member or a friend too. And we inevitably invest a lot of our emotions into them. We excessively worry about them, feel extremely sad whenever they are hurt, feel like taking revenge from whoever hurt them and invest all our love into them. We do this even though we get absolutely nothing in return from them. And we think this is harmless. But it isn’t.

Emotional investments also come with a cost. The cost is us losing the ability to love truly. It is us losing the ability to find happiness in anything except that thing we invested in. It is us losing the ability to see even our own selves for who we are, as we become preoccupied with judging ourselves based on the perception of the one we love. Thus we end up losing the respect we have for ourselves and don’t even have the sense to take care of ourselves. This could happen consciously or subconsciously.

This is why, its so important for us to be careful of where we place our hearts in. The things that we invest in can either make us or break us. And if you have already invested in someone whom you know will not give your emotions in return, taking a step back from them and also the emotions that you invested in them. This can be done by distancing yourself from them and finding the root of your excessive emotions towards the person. True love isn’t excessive and it doesn’t come from a place of desperation and weakness, rather it comes from a place of stability and strength.

And Wallaahi the best place to find the stability and strength for your heart, that is required for true love is with Allah. Rather than investing your time into that toxic place that your heart is yearning for, turn it towards Allah, even if forcibly. Turn your heart to remember Allah. Turn your heart towards the Quran. Turn your heart to learning more about Allah and loving Him. Ask Allah to help you make sense of these unresolved emotions. The love of Allah is the only kind of love where you will get an immediate return directly into your heart. This is the love that will fix the love that you have with everyone else around you. This is the love that will console your heart like nothing else. And this is the love that will help you find your own self and even the sense to love your own self. Subhaanallah!

#Reflections