Choices

It's Friday.

In the city of Rabat, the mesmerizing call to prayer can be heard five times a day with a precision and regularity that only a Higher Being can orchestrate.

On this given Friday, my first one in the city, I found myself sitting at the steps of the Mohammed V Mosque in Rabat, deeply contemplating my life's future.

A week before this day, I had come to Morocco to study at the Mohammed V University and travelled two weeks before classes commenced, so that I could do what travelling students do best: Roam around the city with a travelbook, map and camera in my rugsack and a bottle of water in my right hand.

I had already visited most of the attractions the city offered, but was hoping to be able to attend a service and experience how people in that part of the world worshipped the same God I prayed to. After all, I knew nothing about this religion called Islam, so I was determined to learn as much about it as I could during my stay in Morocco.

As I approached the mosque, I slowly made my way to the steps and slowly made it to the front entrance. It looked closed, so I hoped I hadn't come all the way there just to find out I had come on the wrong day.

I started looking for a sign that would tell me whether my journey had been in vain, when I noticed there was a sign on the entrance door.

I quickly took some steps to get closer to the door and hoped it would tell me the exact opening times and days so that I could plan accordingly.

I looked up, ready to jot down the timings and quickly realized the message the note carried was not going to make a future visit possible.

Muslims only.

I was disappointed.

And slightly confused.

Every major city I had visited before allowed tourists to walk through the open doors of its churches and chapels. Why was this any different?

I sighed. I was already  exhausted and tired and certainly didn't look forward to the long walk back to the hostel. I wanted to complain and present my case to whomever had put the sign there.

But there was no one.

Reluctantly, I accepted that I'd not be entering the mosque during my stay here and instead walked around the mosque, took pictures, admired the architecture and took some more pictures. But my disappointment remained: I had come all this way, with the only result that I would not be allowed to enter the mosque.

I sat down on the edge of the lowest step on the stairs and took out my travelbook. I decided I was going to map out my activities for the next day and started flipping through the travel book and marking out the things I'd do. And as I was thinking about what I was going to do next, I got more and more enveloped by the inmense silence that surrounded the mosque.

My thoughts wandered.

From thinking about my itinerary for the next day, my mind brought me to a place I was visiting quite frequently at that age: Thinking about what I'd do with my life once I graduated. Once I returned back home from studying in Morocco, I'd be graduating within a matter of months and that meant closing an exciting phase in my life -The Glorious Student Years- and facing Adult Life.

So there I sat: Full of big dreams and full of doubt. Full of ambition and full of hesitation. Staring into the distance, as though the answer would travel towards me. Instead the same question kept appearing: What are you going to do with your life, Suzee Dee?

And at that young age, making a choice about what to do next seemed so overwhelming, so life altering! I had major decisions to make, I told myself: I had to decide which country to build my life in, whether to continue studying or enter the life of work, which career path to embark upon, which companies to apply to, which offers to accept and so many other things.

I felt overwhelmed by different choices and pressured to chose a path that would be lauded and applauded by family and loved ones. After all, achievement is important where I come from. It is not just expected, it is mandatory. And I felt nervous about making the wrong choice and ultimately disappointing myself.

I started contemplating the idea of taking one full year off to travel the globe and use that year to discover what I really wanted to do, when suddenly my deepest thoughts were interrupted by a soothing sound I had never heard before. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar (God is Great).

I instinctively closed my eyes and remember thinking and feeling: Ah,  this is so soothing, so peaceful.

To this day, I still remember that exact moment when I heard 'Allahu Akbar' penetrate the labyrinth of my deep thoughts for the very first time. And I can still feel the ensuing feeling of complete stillness I felt at that given moment: I deeply felt the insignificance of my individual existence and totally submerged in a spiritual connectedness that felt overwhelming and all encompassing.

And when I slowly opened my eyes, I was surprised to see the sea of men, mostly dressed in white, walking towards the mosque. They came from all over the city, walking towards that one common goal: to collectively stop whatever they were doing and answer that call to acknowledge God. It seemed like the whole city was answering that call. It was literally a sea of people streaming towards the mosque.

I was mesmerized.

And totally in awe of the dedication and discipline I was witnessing.

I remember feeling, with every intensified call (to prayer), that whatever I was doing at that given moment was utterly insignificant. Though I couldn't understand the language being spoken, I felt it was reminding me that if I stopped doing what I was doing today, Life itself would still go on. I remember understanding that the relevance of what I was doing was limited to just the time within which it was done and that this very moment was just a moment, not my entire Life. I remember deeply understanding that there was more to Life than this moment alone.

Deeply.

Unambiguously.

And as the men drew closer, I remember understanding that they could have chosen to remain in their own moments of insignificance, instead of answering their call.

Five times a day. 

Everyday.

I remember understanding at that moment what I still call the biggest lessons of my life: There will always be choice. You don't have to do today what you did yesterday.

I felt peaceful.

And grateful for the lesson of that moment. That whatever decision I took today, it was just that: a moment. It didn't have to become my entire life. Whatever I did today, would soon be past. And it was up to me to continuously reinvent my own future. No matter if I made a bad choice today.

I understood that.

Deeply.

You can either be an echo of your past, or the glory of your future. You pick. You choose.

I gathered my belongings and took one last picture of the mosque: The Note. I shook my head and smiled: 'Oh, human beings! Don't they know that God speaks to everyone?'

Suzee Dee