Symptoms (1)

Now there are two main types of late "Me's" out there; the two types who represent the two extreme cases of being raised, let us call them, "Late Me Spoil", and "Late Me Suffocate".

We shall start by explaining the first type:

"Late Me Spoil": This is where you can picture Hamada sitting on a couch of feathers, getting used to Mom and Dad passing around all the time, sometimes adjusting the pillows for him, other times placing a bowl of grapes in front of him, etc.

Of course this is an extreme case, but logically speaking it happens, and since childhood, whenever Hamada cries, everyone in the family runs towards him. "What is wrong my dear?! You want to hold the electrical cable? No it will kill you!” Hamada response is dramatic: "AAAH!!" he protests. "Okay my dear, please don’t be upset… Here is Daddy’s mobile…Play with it, break it, do what you will with it!"

When you start to get some reasoning into his parents' minds they respond: "He’s still a child and doesn’t understand anything yet.” They give you a weak, embarrassed smile.

Well what they don't know is that a human being starts developing logic very quickly. For a child (whatever his age is, as long as he is grabbing and noticing that his brain is starting to gather data… intelligently) to get what he wants, he starts to develop methods; the simplest is to scream out. And his "spoiling" parents just give them absolutely EVERYTHING he wants.

So what happens next? The kid starts to develop a very rapid "You" stage and finishes it off at a very early age, only to start one selfish "Me" stage that remains for the rest of his life. Why? Because his brain cells actually have never learned to GIVE anything. All he did throughout his life was to just TAKE whatever he wanted without thinking , and I put a million lines under those two red words.

Now the eternal spoiled "ME" self starts to grow up and has a wider spectrum of desires. And since he got used to getting everything he wanted as a child, he will immediately start working on quenching those various desires. Here we have two very important aspects to regard. Firstly quenching your desires like that without thinking has its effect on the soul, it brings the soul down. Sinning simply brings the level of the soul REAL down, so a person starts feeling insecure, thus sad, and thus depressed. So he starts seeking security in other stuff, thus making him sin more, except those who Allah (S.W.T.) guides in the right path, and we pray for all Muslims to be of those.

Allah (S.W.T.) said in Qur’an, "And do not follow the steps on the Demon." "Wa la tattabe3oo khotowat al shaytan."

So they are steps, one step after the other, till the person is doomed.

Secondly, do you think that such a person who only thinks of his desires might someday grow with a goal for his life, an idea of what he wants to be, how to have a talent and use it for the REAL good of himself?

For example knowing what field he wants to study and accomplish in? Or does he just want to go to an easy faculty where he can fool around and study so little in order to give more time to his desires? See?

Then after graduation (which happens after loads of pushing, for some years), what becomes of Hamada? Nothing new, he just wants to stop doing all the bad things he did in his past life simply because it's enough, those were kids' stuff and now he wants to start growing up…"I" want to get married to quench my desire, and please Dad, "Find me a decent job.” So dad puts Hamada in a company where he does nothing because he is there with Dad’s influence, eventually bringing down the level of production of this country because another man is not in his right place.

The future social life of "spoiled ‘ME’ Hamada" becomes more depressing as he has kids; his wife becomes so fat and so ugly in his eyes. Hamada remembers how "Cindy" from his past looked like. She was beautiful. The kids come into being... Screaming little weenies... Hamada is not used to suffering "What is this horrible life I’m living?!"

What kind of children do you think Hamada will bring up? Or HOW do you think Hamada will raise his kids? I think he will not raise them in the first place. He would just sit around on the couch while Hamada Jr. pulls Hamada's cup, so Hamada says, "Leave it boy!"

Jr. grabs it. Hamada says "Like that?! MOSHEERAAA…Come see what this brat did!” And it might be a good idea to slap Jr. in the process. Mosheera hurries in. "What did you do to him you brat?! Come here my dear, I’m sorry.”

Divorce is wide spread these days, which brings tears to my eyes, to imagine such a great number of Muslims trapped in such a miserable life.

May Allah save us. Such Hamadas’ and Mosheeras’ are available everywhere in Egypt these days. Not necessarily a COPYCAT of the example I've mentioned, but pretty close, same concept, "ME and nothing but satisfying ME!"

In the next post we discuss the outcome of another extreme case... "Late ME suffocate"