Ego and Religion

Its not a surprise for most of us to have an ego or a wall built up between us and God, especially for most of us who didn't grow up submitting ourselves completely to religion or God.

A few days ago I was back in Malaysia for 10 days and before I went back home from UK, I told myself that I wanted to go to the mosque but somehow I totally forgot about it when I went back home. Then one of the last few nights I was home, I suddenly had the urge to set alarm for the next day to go to the mosque for Subuh prayers if possible and have a rather 'meditating' start of my day. But somehow, I didn't. I felt like "eh, I'm not that pious pun, and if I go I bet my family is going to look at me differently, I'm going to look at myself differently. I might even suddenly look at myself trying to be closer to God suddenly" which idk why but these thoughts came running to my head which shouldn't even matter. My family would ofcourse be more than happy if I did what I felt like doing although I might not continue doing it the next few days or even do it everyday. Even if it was one off, at least I did it, I did something good.

It also came to like wearing long pants to swim since I started wearing a scarf. I've always gotten used to wearing shorts to swim that somehow I became indenial when I started to have to start wearing long sleeves and long pants to swim. It was during our trip to Laos, that I had thoughts of like "Why am I trying to wear long pants to swim? Its not like anyone would see me or anything, I could just wear what I want to wear and what I am used to wearing"
I didn't end up wearing shorts though to swim which I gave a tap on my shoulder for, but time and lots of effort is still yet to come for me to properly wear a scarf to swim and I hope that I wouldn't feel that way when I do wear a scarf even to swim.

The thing is though, does that mean that I have an ego between me and my religion? Am I not capable of letting myself fully submit to God? What am I so scared off? I claim that I am capable of getting out of my comfort zone, but I am not even capable to do it for a good reason which is for God and religion?

Why do I feel this way about religion? Anyone would tell me that its the devil in my head telling me that such submission is not necessary, that you'll still live tomorrow so you don't have to submit yourself fully yet, and that as if I'm an "okay" Muslim that I don't even have to try to be a better one but we should always try to improve ourselves in everything that we pursue.

We all think that we're unstoppable, that we're such important people and that we're so good of ourselves but are we really though? We cry the moment we hear someone lie to us, we get heartbroken the moment we stumble upon death and when we don't have enough food we can get so cranky and become "unproductive", and we are so dependable. We even need others to compliment us in order to feed ourselves with a little bit more confidence although most of us wouldn't admit to it. In other words, we are so weak! But why do we still have difficulty submitting ourselves to a higher power? Completely believing that there's a greater power out there?

My mind goes wandering and I am indenial whenever I am about to feel something. Its so difficult for me to even cry or submit myself fully to God when I pray, why am I trying to avoid all these emotions?  Or am I too far astray from the Al-Mighty?

Am I even making sense here?

To Constantly Try

Just a thought in mind, 

For most of us Muslims, we believe that our life is a test, that everything here is tested, but are we really taking the in-depth meaning to this ?

Lets just say we have to prepare for an exam next week,

We would prepare many months ahead (or for some of us, its last minute) for that exam,

And no matter how many times we fail or we didn't get our goals, we still pick ourselves up and try our best for the next one

Even if the test was difficult, we would feel so bummed that we failed it, but why is it that we don't look at our believes the same way? 

You could see also for most of us,

It always go like "yea man, I tried drinking once already, what's the difference drinking more than once, I should just continue drinking and have a hella good time"

But do we do the same thing if it was something so serious like our exams? 

To go like "Oh yeaaa, I missed a few classes and haven't studied, so I should just flunk this exam anyways..."

I think we should see our religion/believes the same way,

Its not about "oh yea, I've sinned, I missed a couple of prayers, might as well not pray at all"

Its about the constant act of trying, no matter how many times you fail

Standing up for something you believe in 

Its okay to break your spirit sometimes, not everyone is strong spirited, 

Just know that no matter what, you always have to keep on trying 

I know its not easy, especially when there's your unwanted conscience saying,

"Nah man, don't do it, you're not gonna gain anything from trying to pray just once after months or weeks or even just days of not praying"

But its about the act of constantly trying

To be honest, it's like me and my hijab,

Some of my friends are like, "Eniza, might as well just take it off for good, there's no difference tryinna wear it"

But that's not the point, the point is to constantly try to wear it in hoping that one day I will get to the point of wearing it full time (insyaAllah)

Doesn't matter if its religion or any type of believes,

Whether you're a vegan constantly trying to get back to eating full on vegetables,

Or if you're running a marathon next month but you are not that well prepared yet,

You should constantly try and never give up on something you love, like, enjoy or believe :)