Feeling proud on a particular achievement is the right of every person since it motivates him/her for further effort but it should never mean that we start feeling arrogant because It is the rule of the nature that for every rise there is a fall and for every tide, there is an ebb.
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Yesterday I met with a friend who had got a very good job in a company and he had changed a lot from what he was in the years we were together at university. The change was more of negative in nature since he started looking down upon us-his friends-because of the status he had got after getting the lucrative job. My friends, who were our mutual friends, complained about his behavior and I agreed with them but told them how one should not be so proud of his/her status because it is a temporary thing. I then told them about some classical examples of great powers from the global community who were once considered impregnable but no longer exist or their grandeur has disappeared now.
As a Muslim, I would like to start from the Muslim history that how great Muslim kings who considered themselves above people had to face the wrath of the opponents. If we look at the Umayyad Caliphate, we will come to know that they ruled with a heavy hand, killing and suppressing millions but what happened towards the end?
The Abbasids came and slaughtered all of the family except one person who ran away to the Spanish territory and created his own kingdom there. When Abbasids started considering themselves as impregnable, the Mongols came and beaten almost every single person in the family to death. The same thing had happened to the Roman and Persian Empire after the rise of Islamic Caliphate during the era of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w).
What do these things show?
It shows that nothing in this world is permanent. Everything is temporary except for the presence of God. This tradition of the rise and fall continues as can be seen in the fall of the Russian Empire during the 90s but what remains constant is “Pride hath a fall”. Achieving power is a difficult job but maintaining it is even more difficult since the one in power starts forgetting how much hardships he/she had to go to reach this place and how those holding reigns of powers, considered him being not more than a small particle.
Note: That friend of mine has lost his Job now.