A person was very tired of guests. His house was very close to a bus terminal so whenever anyone of his acquaintances arrived from other city or wanted to go to another city from this city, he would come to his house and stay for a day or two. When a guest left his house, another guest arrived and in this way, he was never left alone. In the beginning, he welcomed the guests with an open forehead and tried his best to serve them well but the passage of time and excessive arrival of guests made him indifferent to the guests and now he only tried to handle them and provide them with the necessary items. Then he had a chance to visit some of his relatives in Iran. His plan was to stay for a week or ten days there, but people were so much hospitable that he was not let to return for more than a month and he was busy in eating feasts and attending invitations and going to the picnics. It looked as if he was one of their lost relatives and they tried their best to serve him and keep him happy.
When he went to bazaar and wanted to buy something, he was not allowed to pay for this and payment was done by the guests before he knew about it. When he wanted to go somewhere and hired a taxi, the guests would have already paid the fare of the taxi. But most impressive was their desire and sincerity to serve the guest better and better. In morning, different things were brought on breakfast, in lunch and dinner, new and delicious dishes were cooked so that he should not feel bored with similar dishes. When he wanted to go out, a child would quickly run out and make his shoes ready. Many times it happened that he found his shoes polished and cleaned when he was sitting or sleeping in the room.
Once he decided to go to another city and soon, tickets of the bus were brought to him and he was not let to pay for them. When he got seated in the bus one of the relatives handed over a parcel to him. Inside it, a chicken was roasted and wrapped in bread and it was for his food on the way.
In short, they knew the methods of serving and surprising the guest and felt much pleased to make the guest happy. Anyhow, this person came back with a lot of sweet memories and an inspiration to be more helpful to others. Then, he changed a lot and he welcomed every guest and tried his best to be of any work.
Many years before when I was in my high school in Pakistan, I used to take different people to different doctors and hospitals. Especially, I accompanied those who used to come from Afghanistan for medical purposes and could not understand or speak Urdu. With my intensive experience, I knew the names of all the specialist doctors and also the rates charged by hospitals. In this regard, I had become a kind of directory and I was contacted by different people to ask about different doctors and good hospitals. It was a nice and easy way of making others happy and acquiring their prayers and blessings. But when I got busy with university subjects, I started feeling it as a burden and tried to avoid it as much as possible. I gave advice to people to go by themselves to the hospital or lied that such a doctor was not present in the city and they should go to a bigger city for the treatment. Slowly and gradually, people realized that I was avoiding them so they also decreased asking me and in the end, this activity came to a complete halt.
Now that more than a decade has passed, I realize how much lucky I was to be of service to others and also the fact that I missed a golden opportunity of being good to others by avoiding this chance.
Same routine life is very dangerous for some of the unique qualities of people. As it is said that a still water becomes stagnant and a good thing changes into a poison, same is the case with the lives of people who don’t think of bringing any kind of change in it. Passing days and nights act like sand that slowly and gradually cover our lives with indifference and makes us stone-hearted. Until and unless one is not moved by something inspirational, routine life makes you act like a judge who is holding a scale in his hand and weighing the things by its quantity. If no one is good to me, why should I be good to others? If others are not helpful to me, why should I bother to be helpful to others? In the same way, we keep weighing the things in our surrounding and in the end, find ourselves confined in a nutshell from which nothing goes out or no one can access us for any work.
In the same way, difficulties faced by us may also make adverse effects on us and make the effects mentioned above. The situation and our feelings change whenever we experience a change from our routine life and this is best done by making a journey to a place. It is true that no journey has ever gone without any kind of gain; be it in knowledge or in learning something inspirational.
A friend of mine went to a trip of a village in Eid and as he returned from there, he came running to me as he had many things to share. He told that he was helped on a number of occasions in this journey. A person helped him in the bus in loading up his luggage. On the way, a family invited him to share the lunch with them. When he was staying with his relatives, he was invited on lunch and dinner by a lot many people who didn’t know him at all but who were anxious to put their share in serving a guest. At the same time, he also learned that there were so many villagers who used to live a happy life by not worrying too much about different things and many other inspirational lessons like these. Anyhow, now he feels himself far better and extraordinarily motivated to be good to others.
The other day, a person called me and asked for appointment for his work. He was having some problems in filling up a form for admission in an international university. As it has become our routine, I was very tired and I also feared that it would take many hours. As I was going to refuse, I stopped for a while and asked him to come. When he came, his problem was solved in a few minutes and he was very grateful for me. Then I realized that we miss numerous chances of being helpful to others and majority of these are those that can be done without much effort. After listening to the story of my friend, I also pledged that after this, I will try my best not to turn down anyone’s request. This may be the case with majority of us and time and again, we need to remove this dust from our souls and ideas.