How can I overcome obstacles to achieve my ambitions?
Question: Islam has emphasized much on pondering and thinking, as you know. I, like other people, have my own ambitions in my marital and family life in the midst of hundreds of obstacles and frustrations. Would you please show me practical steps based on the right thinking in order to solve these problems and push the obstacles out of my way?
The answer: You should know that thinking, like breathing, is a vital operation for man. Just as you live through breathing, you enjoy the pleasures of life through thinking because you can defeat problems one after another without exhausting yourself, and then you can feel the ecstasy of victory.
Do not think that there exists a life without problems. The problems for a person who does not ponder and think keep accumulating until that person perishes while his accumulated problems remain.
The difference is that you, with the right thinking, feel, as you should, that you can conquer a problem and are ready to conquer the next one, without thinking you will be defeated or will suffer until you die without achieving any success or gaining any benefit in your life.
As for the practical steps you have asked about, they are as follows:
1. Devote your heart to Allah the Almighty and ask Him for success!
2. Give charity as much as you possibly can to the poor without letting any human being know about it!
3. Explain the problem you face to yourself and try to understand it well!
4. Obtain as much information as you can to solve the problem!
5. Make a real estimation of your actual state!
6. Think of several solutions and consult with reasonable persons about your problem!
7. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of each one of those solutions, and then choose the best of them based on your actual abilities!
8. When thinking of a certain matter, do not occupy your mind with another one!
9. Concentrate all your abilities on solving your problems according to the level of their importance!
10. Before beginning (to solve the problem), think well of the things you need for the solution!
11. Carry out each step in its time!
12. Let your wife participate with you in these steps and cooperate with her at all times!