Stories and lessons entitled The secret of happiness is contentment

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I think that the most important type of stories that we need to read constantly and continuously are stories with lessons and morals. This type of stories can give us a lot of experiences and expertise from those who came before us. Once we do something simple like reading them, we can benefit from all the lessons and benefits they bring.

The story:

A true story classified as one of the stories and lessons because of its many lessons, narrated by His Eminence Sheikh “Mohamed Metwally Al-Shaarawy”….

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One day during the month of Ramadan, while I was returning home an hour before sunset, a poor man stopped me on the road. He was one of those who frequented my lessons at the mosque, and he ran to me and greeted me eagerly, and asked me, saying: “I implore you by the face of God Almighty to break your fast with me today, our Sheikh.”

I tied my tongue with his eagerness, and his intense desire tightened my neck, and a face shone in my heart that made me swear by his greatness, so I said to him: “Brother, my family is waiting for me, and my circumstances do not allow me to,” but I found myself following him to his house, which I did not know where it was, and I did not know his difficult circumstances at a time like breakfast time. As soon as we arrived at his house, which consisted of a room, a kitchen, and a small open courtyard on a roof that he had bought from its owners, it had an entrance and a special staircase made of wood that could not bear two people climbing it at once, as its thin wood was crying out to the weakness behind it, poverty and old age!

I felt happiness in the man’s heart, from the expressions of thanks and gratitude that flowed from his lips, as he used to say: “Look, my lord, this whole house is mine and the kingdom belongs to God alone. Look, my lord, the sun rises in my room in the morning and sets on the other side. Here I sit and read the Qur’an at dawn and before sunset, and as for my wife, may God be pleased with her, she sits by this window and prays to God for me constantly. By God, my lord, I feel as if I am living in heaven.”

The man was talking to me all this time and I was climbing the stairs very carefully for fear of falling. In a few moments we reached the room, so I sat down and the man went to his wife. At that moment I heard the man’s soft voice saying to his wife: “I want you to prepare breakfast for the Sheikh, he will break his fast with us today.” I heard his wife’s voice saying: “By God, my husband, we have nothing to eat except beans, and there is only half an hour left until the Maghrib call to prayer and we have nothing to cook, and even if it was, I would not have time to do so!”

I heard the conversation that took place between them, and when the man came to me, I said to him: “Brother, I have one condition for you: I break my fast with water and dates at the Maghrib call to prayer, and I do not eat anything until half an hour after the Maghrib call to prayer, after which the dates and water have been digested. I pray and finish my daily prayers, and I eat nothing but fava beans and potatoes.”

The man said to me happily: “As you wish, my sheikh.”

So I asked him to let me be alone with my Lord, and what I wanted was done, and I broke my fast with him and then left. I chose beans and potatoes because they are the food of the poor and I consider them theirs. I left their house feeling very happy and feeling a euphoria of joy in my entire being. I loved this world from the tongue of this man, from whose mouth nothing came out but expressions of praise and thanks for the blessings of God Almighty. I heard the most beautiful words about praising and thanking God for this house that God gave him and this life that he sings about the beauty of.

A few days later, I was invited to breakfast with a group of dignitaries by a wealthy merchant. He was one of those whom God Almighty had blessed with money, prestige, and children, in addition to his lineage and ancestry. I received an invitation to go to a luxurious farm. This farm was pleasant to the onlookers, with a house in the middle that looked more like a palace, overlooking a swimming pool and a place for horses that contained rare purebred Arabian horses.

We broke our fast at the man’s house, and the types and varieties of food were delicious. After breaking our fast, the owner of the farm and the inviter took me aside and began to complain to me about the hardships of life, the worries of his business, the troubles of his children, the bad character of his wife, the greed of those around him, and the many expenses to please everyone. He complained about how tired he was of life and how much he wanted to die to be done with all these worries that surrounded him in every aspect of life.

I swear to God that from the door of his house to the door of my car, this man made the world dark in my eyes, and he choked my chest and my breath from the abundance of his complaints. So I looked at the sky after it was illuminated, got into my car and said in my heart, thank God for the blessing of contentment.

Happiness is not something we pay for, but happiness is nothing but a good relationship with God Almighty and contentment with what He has allotted for us.

The moral of the story:

We learn from our story that those who enjoy a high degree of satisfaction with life are the same ones who have a great deal of hope, love, optimism, enthusiasm, curiosity, and gratitude. In other words, in order to be satisfied and happy, be optimistic, loving those close to you, accepting of life, seeking knowledge, and grateful and thankful to God Almighty for all of this.

Know that the path to contentment is a short and very close path, and most importantly, it leads to a great goal, but it involves hardship. Despite this, its hardship is not more difficult than the hardship of the path of struggle.