How many times have we come across chances to do something right in our lives but yet in the end it turns out unlike what’s expected? Do we need to initiate chances by strengthening our choices or is it adequate to just hope and wait for the right chance to swing by? Either way when it comes to map the future, nothing is absolutely certain… especially as far as time is concerned. Of course it’s easy to say, “Failing to plan is planning to fail” but reality simply speaks different lingo at times. Inasmuch we plan and execute accordingly, fate is still an undeniable overruling factor.
As a normal human being, choosing things in life begins as early as we are able to think. In Islam the age of ‘Mumayyiz’ signifies a stage when kids can start to differentiate basic good and bad 
things. Some say it’s between the ages of 3 to 10 years old while some other scholars say 7 years old. As early as this age, Muslim kids who are able to think like a normal human being can already be given the right to choose parental guardian should a divorce implicates them to do so. Also according to a Prophetic Hadith, parents of kids at this age are advised to start teaching their sons and daughters about Solat.
Then comes the age of ‘Baligh’ or puberty which entitles a human being more rights and responsibilities as a Muslim. Starting from this point, individual choices are regarded as personal accountability regardless legal civil age that defines juvenile. Parental guidance beyond puberty age becomes reminders as the relevance of being accountable to one’s individual acts has been transferred from parents to children. Legally, according to Islamic jurisprudence, one is supposedly eligible to be subjected for punishment by Islamic laws upon his or her own wrongful actions.
To be or not to be a practicing Muslim is a choice for everybody upon the age of puberty. For those who are lucky to have parents who continue being concern with relentless parental services in guiding their offspring, it is a blessing that often being perceived by some juvenile as a nagging. The impacts of becoming young adults with volatile emotions affected by hormones often insinuate irrational curiosities driven by passion, lust and cool preference amongst them. At this point, many parents face attitudinal challenges from their once cute little children.
By chance, today’s values allow many to meet opportunities to divulge lustful appreciation. Chances are higher today that teenagers, especially suburban and urbanites, know more about sex as oppose to religious stuffs. Knowing is one thing, experiencing is another. An academic research conducted in 2003 indicated findings that some Malaysian girls started having sexual intercourse as early as 12 years old while 9.6% from around 18 thousand respondents admitted to pre-marital intercourse. Almost 10% have had sex before marriage. Is that considerably low, medium or high?
Comparatively the so called modern liberal thinkers would perceive such percentage as low for a progressively developing nation but should we look at it from Islamic perspective, clearly there’s loop in our society. After all, more than 50% of the respondents from such research are Malays. The 12 months research in 2003 alone managed to find 448 pre-marital sex amongst around 5 
thousand unmarried respondents. How many unlawful intercourses could it be if we are to assume both married and unmarried Muslims in Malaysia based on those research findings?
How about more than 130,000 Malaysian youth have experienced unlawful sexual intercourse? That’s what a media survey in 2004 found. Another survey in 2008 showed more than 20% Malaysian youth had had pre-marital sex. That’s just mutually consented intercourse collected during surveys. Heuristically speaking, it could be more. Seemingly there’s a steady incremental trend in favor of unlawful intercourse. These stuffs come in different manner of chances at random, encouraged and/or mostly planned. It is a choice of lust, coated with the idea of love according to predominantly western influence.
Other than lust, greed also usually comes in chances where choices have to be made. The mighty dollar, ringgit, yen, euro, pound, quid, riyal or whatever term being used to coin money, still holds huge significance in people’s mentality. The basic similarity between the two root vices lies in ‘I want more’. Both lust and greed can never be satisfied. Most people basically know this but the notion to disobey these two is rather difficult to adhere although it is also commonly understood that excessive and compulsive behavior towards the two shall only triumph with evil.
Never enough. That explains a lot in justifying one’s obsessive compulsive behavior over lust & greed. Inasmuch a poor maniac resort to rape, the filthy rich minorities easily slip away with the same lust & greed using influential dollars and tradable sense according to worldly human definition of life ecosystem. These people beget money to fulfill lust sexually, power autocratically, wealth physically, belongings and belongingness materially and emotionally up to a point love stands as a commodity with price tags in their materialistic dictionary. Who cares about the needy? Their definition upon “survival of the fittest” upholds individual egoistic sanctity.
Being greedy, having more than others is a sound rationale to have more money in order to buy more authority, exclusivity, priority, immunity, social hierarchy, sexuality, dignity and democracy. Everything becomes a chance for sale. Each chance comes with a blunt equation; “money talks, bullshit walks”. Is this the ideal world we live in today and the kind of world we intend to pass onto our inheriting next generations? What pushed us to choose accepting reality with monetary dignity? Ideally materialistic ideology is going towards the other end against religious intention, subsequently requesting us to CHOOSE between the two ends.
The livelihood of enjoying life in this world has been painted and decorated with materialistic values ever since mankind learned that once one is capable to empower majority of others, the reward can satisfy lustful greed and crave of wealth. Just go and get that pole position in order to withstand ones’ existence towards relevance. Who wouldn’t dream of becoming rich, powerful and famous? Many want to own the world so bad until it doesn’t really matter to them whether the route needed to get to the top is likeable or despicable in the eyes of other people or even The Almighty’s.
How are these all leading to our fall? This is a conditional answer to such question… Derivation of perception must refer back to basic purity of intentions against ulterior motives. When people get communal with everybody’s main personal agenda is to attain the world for the sake of individual, the only rational outcome to expect would fit capitalism, globalization, new world order and the likes nicely. This formula might sounds incidental but let’s not discredit freemason conspiracy theory out of it just yet simply because of AlQur’an has pre-empted us with;
“And those who disbelieved are allies of one another. If you do not do so, there will be slander (fitnah) on earth and great corruption”. (Al-Anfal : 73).
As we speak, many decisions are taking place on our behalf because manier times the supposed responsible entrusted parties practically choose to do so for whatever reasons deemed necessary and/or profitable to them. The likelihood of appointed and elected representatives amongst human to prioritize what's good for them on top of what should be good for the people they represent is rather turning into normalcy as opposed to simply rampant. The common highly probable basis of rationale triggered by people who regard worldly materialistic return in anything they do would be the infamous question, "what's in it for me?"
Personally, everybody has the right to choose in every single chance throughout life. Mindset, worldview, attitude, perception, belief, sentiment etc are among other variables we all choose to practically believe and hold on. All those choices we made in our lives constitute a huge amount of description upon who we are as a person. In a way we can say we choose our own personality. Within the boundary of ALLAH’s chance for us to live in His world, we choose our lifestyles… Isn’t it highly rational that as human we should at least have the courtesy to consider the ONE who gives us all those chances including lending us everything we think we own in this world?
Wallahu a’lam.
By: Towil
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