Do We Forget Ourselves While Trying to Change Others?

11 September 2023

Whose Responsibility Are We Carrying?

Question: Could we be neglecting our own lives and responsibilities while trying to correct someone else’s wrongdoing?

“Why did they do that?”

“How could they behave like that despite all the kindness?”

“They just do not understand.”

Sometimes we repeat these sentences within ourselves for days.

We want someone close to us to change. We explain, warn, and speak again.

But after a point, we tie all our attention to their behavior. Our own choices and daily responsibilities recede into the background.

Wanting the best for someone we love is understandable.

However, we cannot decide on their behalf. We cannot think for them or forcibly change their inner world.

Verses 25 and 26 of Surah Al-An’am speak of people who listen yet do not accept, and who also try to turn others away.

As we reflect on these verses, we can ask ourselves: Are listening and truly being open to understanding the same thing?

A person may hear our words. But they may have devoted all their attention to defending their own thinking.

We sometimes behave this way, too.

While the other person is speaking, we prepare our reply instead of understanding what they are saying.

So let us not look for the issue only in others.

Let us examine our own way of listening as much as the person we want to change.

Doing What We Can and Knowing Our Limits

Question: Can we see the difference between helping someone and trying to manage all of their choices?

We can listen to the troubles of someone close to us.

We can state our opinion honestly.

We can try to demonstrate in our own lives what we believe is right.

But what follows is not determined solely by our effort.

People are also responsible for their own direction.

Accepting this may not be easy. Especially when someone we love is involved, we want them to see immediately what we see.

Sometimes we experience this in our relationship with our spouse. Sometimes with a sibling, sometimes with our child.

When the outcome does not change after a conversation, we return to the same subject more forcefully. Then we return to it again.

After a while, our entire relationship becomes confined to that issue.

Here, let us turn to ourselves: Have I done what I can?

Have I spoken clearly?

Have I been honest and consistent in my own behavior?

Or am I imprisoning my own day within the same argument by monitoring the other person’s every move?

Knowing our limits does not mean becoming indifferent. It means seeing which responsibility belongs to us.

When we make our own lives depend solely on someone else’s changing, we may find it difficult to use the opportunities we have.

Yet today we also have tasks to fulfill, people to care for, and behaviors to try to correct.

Let us not postpone these.

While occupying ourselves with someone else’s choices, let us not forget to exercise our own right to choose.

Does Our Perspective Change When We See the Effort?

Question: When evaluating what someone else has done, how much do we see the effort behind it?

Let us think about a meal prepared at home.

Behind the table set before us every day is preparation. Shopping is done, food is prepared, and time is devoted.

But one day, when the meal is not as we want it, we may immediately point out the fault.

There is not enough salt.

The rice has not turned out as we expected.

That day’s shortcoming overshadows all the previous effort.

Then one day we enter the kitchen ourselves.

We make a similar meal. Perhaps it is not very different, but this time we know how much effort we have put in.

We want what we have done to be noticed.

Let us recognize the difference here: We look closely at our own effort; sometimes we look at someone else’s effort only through the result.

This is not just about food.

We can show the same attitude in working life and family relationships.

While describing our own contribution in detail, we may take someone else’s contribution for granted.

Yet to be fair to one another, we need to broaden this perspective.

If we are going to criticize a task, let us also see the effort behind it.

Pointing out what is missing and devaluing everything that has been done are not the same thing.

Let us make someone else’s effort visible as much as we want our own effort to be seen.

This is part of gratitude and loyalty in our relationships.

It is not only food that comes to the table; a person’s time and effort come with it.

How Does Awareness of Accountability Appear Today?

Question: Does believing that we will be held accountable change our behavior at the moment of a difficult decision?

Verses 27–31 of Surah Al-An’am describe the wish to return, resurrection, and facing what one has done.

These reminders do not merely provide information about a distant day. They also address our choices today.

Sometimes people think that telling the truth will harm them.

They fear losing their position.

They hesitate because of the reaction of those around them.

They do not want to give up an advantage.

Precisely at that moment, the question “How will I account for this?” becomes important.

The expression of this question in daily life is honesty.

Not concealing the truth when we see someone being wronged.

Standing behind our word in trade.

Not altering the truth for our own interests.

In a film, the conflict experienced by an official under pressure to execute a person believed to be innocent makes this point visible.

The official is caught between protecting his position and defending what is right. The thought of being held accountable becomes decisive in his decision.

What matters here is not merely a title or an identity. It is what a person does under pressure.

Verse 62 of Surah Al-Baqarah also mentions faith in Allah and the Last Day together with righteous deeds.

Let us consider this connection in our own lives.

We say we believe. But how are our words reflected in our work and our relationships with people?

Do we preserve the trust of someone who trusts us?

When a mistake of ours comes to light, do we move toward concealing it or accepting it?

Awareness of accountability becomes most visible when making a choice becomes difficult.

Can We Accept Our Own Mistakes?

Question: While claiming credit for success, do we always place our mistakes on someone else?

When something goes well, we easily remember our own contribution.

“I worked.”

“I thought it through.”

“I provided support.”

But when things go wrong, other names may come to the fore.

It happened because of them.

They led me to it.

I had no part in it.

Of course, someone else may truly have wronged us. Thinking about our own responsibility does not mean accepting that injustice as right.

But if we never see our own choices, we also miss the part we can change.

At what point did we make the wrong decision?

On what issue did we choose silence even though we knew?

Where did we rush?

Where did we try to justify ourselves?

In Adam’s repentance, a person’s acceptance of their own wrongdoing stands out.

Yusuf’s approach of not declaring his own soul entirely innocent also reminds us of humility.

Being knowledgeable does not protect a person completely from error. Having good intentions does not mean every decision we make is right, either.

So when we pray, let us not ask only for our difficulty to end.

Let us also ask to be able to see what is right.

Let us also ask to be able to accept our mistakes.

Let us also ask to be able to carry what we learn into our behavior.

Let us maintain the same humility when looking at the blessings we have. Let us not see our resources as limitless self-sufficiency.

Let us not make our possessions, work, and achievements the whole meaning of life.

Let us seek a standard between wastefulness and miserliness. Let us recognize our own needs while not forgetting to share.

Our opening question is clearer now: Do we forget ourselves while trying to change others?

Today, instead of explaining a loved one’s mistake once more, we can turn toward the right action we ourselves can take.

We can notice an effort.

We can correct something we have said.

We can acknowledge a mistake.

Turning toward our own responsibility does not mean ignoring the injustices around us.

When we see something wrong, we can speak about it.

We can also express our boundaries in the face of behavior that harms us.

But we should not make another person’s changing the starting condition for every good thing in our own lives.

Thinking that we can do nothing because they have not changed may narrow the possibilities before us.

We may have a disagreement with our spouse.

We may disapprove of a sibling’s behavior.

When we give all our attention to their faults, we may miss the tone of our own words and our own neglect.

We need to be able to look at both at the same time.

While leaving the other person’s responsibility to them, we must not forget our own responsibility.

This is not an easy balance.

When people believe they have been wronged, they may not want to discuss their own part.

They may imagine that accepting their own mistake will make the other person entirely right.

Yet both people may have separate responsibilities.

One person’s mistake does not remove the other’s mistake.

Making this distinction helps us speak more clearly.

Let us not think of our faith merely as a name we use for ourselves, either.

Let us remember the relationship between faith in Allah and the Day of Reckoning and good behavior.

Let us not take refuge behind a label and give up questioning our conduct.

What a person truly values is revealed in their choices at certain moments.

What they do when their own interests and integrity come face to face matters.

How they respond when a mistake is pointed out matters.

For whose benefit they use the power they hold matters.

Looking at our responsibility today is therefore a concrete way of remembering the future reckoning.

We cannot change all of other people’s choices, but we can return to our own responsibility today.