Today life threw a thunderbolt. Wake up.

October 2nd 2020. I was woken up with news of death of a friend.

"Afifah, alip dah meninggal pagi tadi, sebab cancer."

No warnings, no nothing, the message just popped up. I stared at it for a few minutes. It took me the whole morning to convince myself it was real. And my mind is still processing this at 1am as I'm writing this. And because I never knew he had cancer, this news was beyond shocking and definitely unforeseen.

How can something change so suddenly? How can someone just leave? Is that how it is? Life just throw thunderbolts at you without warnings??

These questions haunted me the whole day. The dark clouds and rain pouring outside wasn't helping me feel any better either.

I cannot help but feel so powerless and vulnerable. Vulnerable to the unexpected twists and turns of life. Vulnerable to fates' manifestations. Vulnerable to nature taking its course. And scared of having no power over anyone of it at all. Not a single second of it. Come to think of it, we never have. Not even the air we breathe.

We are nothing but executions of God's plans. Nothing but characters for what is fated. He says "Be! and it is".

So why then are we still stressing over silly things in life? Still feeling troubled over things that don't go our way?, when we have absolute zero control over it. Yes it's scary how weak and incapacitated we really are. And yes, we can do nothing more than to accept how life unfolds.

Humble yourself. Let life happen. Surrender. Let God.

It was never within your jurisdiction to begin with. Nothing is.

Please recite al-fatihah for my friend who passed away earlier today. May Allah bless his soul and place him among the pious. Thank you.