Focus on Ourselves

“Is there any Rewards for Good other than Good?”

(Ar-Rahman [55]: 60)

Brothers and sisters, goodness can be modeled or spread by anybody to anybody. However, goodness can be effectively attached to ourselves when it is begun from ourselves. In other words, we should focus on looking after ourselves before seeing to other people.

If we expect to see someone else’s goodness, we should first do good things ourselves. To educate our children effectively, for example, we should show them our good behavior. How can it be possible to forbid our children to smoke while we smoke at the same time in front of them? A leader, likewise, should conduct himself with good examples before asking his people to do good deeds. A religious figure cannot order people not to gossip if he, himself, talks about other people’s badness everyday. Such things will in fact humiliate our own respect of life because our behavior does not reflect our words and heart. We will then just be an object of ridicule.

Our strong will and hope to see goodness around will motivate us to begin spreading goodness by doing deeds. If we see something dirty, we will not hesitate to clean it. We are happy to create a nice environment to make other people happy. It can be through our smile, our help, or our effort to contribute some solutions. Eventually, there will be condition in which we, ourselves, become the source of goodness and solution for other people.

Our presence will be something expected by people who hope for peace and motivation. This is what Rasulullah showed us. The people who hope for peace and motivation drop their tears and eager to meet Rasululllah SAW although it might only be in their dreams. It is because the source of goodness and pure heart.

We can follow Rasulullah’s example by thinking and behaving positively. Surely, it will support an environment with full of goodness to come out around us.

Adapted from “Jagalah Hati” by Abdullah Gymnastiar, MQS Publishing. Bandung 2004