You Did It To Yourself

Warning : This is my personal experience that I wanted to share with you. You could be judgmental and I couldn't and won't stop you. Allah is to judge me and He did keep his promise.

I had my assessment for my current career post last month after several months of waiting. I was informed 6 days earlier and it was obvious that I had ample time to prepare myself mentally and physically and to strategize the best route to the assessment center so I could ensure I arrived earlier than appointment time. You know KL, a car could have been parked at the very side of a road because the driver could not avoid but had to pee there and then and the whole route and connected route would congest instantly.

I, being the typical kelam kabut assessee would definitely do my homework, revision and start praying for the best, for everything to go smooth easy peasy. I meant not too easy lah but well enough that I could not do anything wrong or stupid. But I kept on delaying the preparation process and even worse, delaying in performing my solat hajat (which by the way I would always make sure I did at least once before any big thing). The first 3 days prior to the assessment, I barely done any preparation, including the solat hajat. And it so happened that I had my menstrual right on the 4th day which clearly meant it was impossible for me to perform the solat hajat prior to the assessment. That when I started to worry about the assessment, my lack of preparation and my lack of confidence.

I however managed to get some tips and helpful information from some friends who had undergone the same assessment quite recently. I felt more confident but my instinct was still not settled down. When people told that I'm going to be OK, they had faith me, they knew I could do it, I didn't deny the motivation but I still had the feeling that something bad would happen. I told them that it was not the content of the assessment but more to the outside factors for example I might get brain freeze or it could be my health or my car buat hal (as I discovered all four tyres looked a bit penyek) or even worse, something might have happened during on the road. Na'uzubillahiminzalik. I continued praying that the assessment would go well.

But indeed, it happened, it was the last one, the journey.

That night, Husband commanded everyone to sleep early. The lights were off as early as 9.45pm and I slept earlier than Eirsa did. The night was fine, I had a good night sleep, just a small tolerable interruption when Eirsa woke up for her regular night milk feed. The alarm was functioning, I woke up as early as 6.04 a.m. But.

Never had I done this before, I chose to just lay on the bed for some more minutes, checked my iPhone, accessed my Twitter account and even managed to reply to an interesting The Pink Stiletto's tweet. I even read the whole timeline and didn't notice how minutes that I have wasted until it was already 6.25am and I rushed to get ready for the day. Weirdly, I didn't get panic attacked. Even though I knew the SMART tunnel was closed due to maintenance, I still intelligently came to an assumption that they would open the tunnel back for public access due to overwhelming complaints received due to the closure that started the day before. I was completely wrong.

I reached the KL-Seremban highway as late as 7.25am and gosh, the traffic was almost not moving. The SMART tunnel management was so serious about the maintenance and continued closing the tunnel for another day. And. I. Was. Dead. The registration was at 8.30am and it is impossible for me to reach Jalan Semarak in on hour, when the car was only crawling at 10km/h. Weirdly, I still didn't get panic attacked, as if I knew this was going to happen. As if I knew this was THE punishment.

So, I asked a friend to guide me to another route, via Besraya. The day before, the route was better than KL-Seremban Highway, to reach Loke Yew and I could at probably reached Jalan Semarak around 8.30am. I took a turn and guided by her on the phone and alhamdulillah reached Besraya easily. But, but, but. Besraya traffic was moving at 30km/h an it was already 7.50am. D.A.M.N. That when I started to panic.

At a point on Besraya, I could actually choose to each Jalan Semarak via Jalan Istana & Mahameru or I could choose to proceed straight to join Loke Yew. Again, I assumed that Loke Yew would not be as congested since most of the drivers got stuck at KL- Seremban highway. Definitely a wrong assumption. My car was technically stop at a point for around 10 mins and move another 50 meters and halt again and this happened almost all the way on Loke Yew until I reached Jalan Tun Razak. At this point I had switched off my radio, higher up the blower, lower down the temperature and pray pray pray (and almost cried). I called my mom for her prayers and text my husband and friend on the latest news. That was the time when I realized why were all these happening.

I always procrastinate in performing my solat. It is quite a routine to wait for at the very end of solat period to perform it and wait for 10 minutes to continue performing the next prayer. For example at office. My Zuhur is usually 15 minutes before Asar so I would only have to have wudu' once. And embarrassingly, sometimes I only managed to perform Zuhur during the borderline of Zuhur and Asar. Why am I doing this to the very important thing in my life; serving Allah. And solat only require 5 x 5 times a day and I still want to find was to delay. And that was what Allah showed me the importance of preserving my discipline (means performing solat); through this incident.

But, the next part could not emphasize more that Allah is indeed Ar-Rauf, The Pitying.

I reached the registration desk 2 minutes before they started, with empty stomach. But I still managed to grab a box of 100ml soy bean and finished the whole lot 30 seconds before the assessment started. A couple of deep breaths later, the assessment started. And Allah is Al-'Afuw (The Pardoner) the whole session was easy, the assessor was being firm and fair and I had ample time later to prepare for the second session. I even believe that all the easiness granted was not because of me or my prayers, but for others that prayed and would rely on me to pass this assessment.

Thank you Allah, thank you Allah, thank you Allah.

Thank you to Mak, Husband, Eirsa, my angels and angelos in office, my angels in my heart, mothers and all of you that have prayed for me. May Allah love you more.

Note : Alhamdulillah, result received today and I passed the assessment, means some monthly extra rezeki for me. True enough. Allah itu tidak zalim, tetapi kamu yang menzalimi diri kamu sendiri.