Let’s take the positives in this year of sorrow

The tenth year of Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) prophethood is described as the “Year of Sorrow.” This is the year when he lost Khadija, his beloved wife of over 25 years and his uncle, Abu Talib his protector against the oppression of his own tribe.  In the same year, he was also insulted and dirt thrown in his face. This was the early years when the Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) was struggling to proclaim  his prophethood. Indeed it was a year of great sorrow. 2020 was our year of great sorrow.

My wife lost a sister, a mother and a sister-in-law in the space of six months. Her husband, yours truly, almost drowned in the high seas looking for fish that he could easily have bought in the market. As my boat was sinking all I could think about is that my wife would also lose a husband in the same year.

Obviously since I am writing this a few days afterwards the Good Lord decided to give me a reprieve. I believe that I still have a higher purpose to accomplish before I am given my final departure boarding pass.

This was a year when hundreds of thousands lost their jobs, closed their businesses and multitudes lost their lives. In the wake of Corona there was nothing we could do but pray. When Corona hit us we all went through the same cycle of denial, the anger than acceptance.

This disease has humbled us all, there is no distinction between the rich and poor, the high and mighty and the common man or between black, brown, yellow or white. Despite the best medical facilities we all succumbed to the disease. In fact the richer states lost more lives than those of us in African countries.

All is not lost. We have learnt valuable lessons. Crisis forces all of us to introspect. There is opportunity in crisis and we have and must look for the opportunities. If you are to gain from this year of sorrow then you must look for the silver lining in these dark clouds. I have seen many. Perhaps the greatest achievement has been the renewal of our faith and belief in God, whatever you perceive Him to be. Man likes to think he is master of the universe until he is faced with events beyond his control and understanding. It is comforting to see so many men of little faith returning to God. Faith sustains and strengthens us. We have all become more hygienic. We as Muslims are forced to wash hands five times a day prior to prayers. We wash hands before and after meals. This has now become common practice. We are all learning new cleaner habits that hopefully will continue long afterwards. Our children have learnt important lessons.

We have learnt to appreciate the good work that teachers do on our behalf, educating our unappreciative children. I have come to realise that even following up on our children’s progress in class is hard work, let alone trying to teach them the algebra that I failed in class decades ago.

Our social lives have been devastated with this novel concept of “social distancing.” I miss the days when we would all gather in groups cheering or celebrating life. We have learnt that small groups are better and that we can still enjoy life without large groups. We have learnt to enjoy our own company and staying at home has increased family bonding.

Our work styles have changed. My last business trip was in early January where my partner and I flew to London for a two hour business lunch and meeting that we could easily have done over zoom. We could have saved time, money and energy sitting in our own homes or offices and achieved the same objectives.

Many of us are not as indispensable as we thought we were and our offices and businesses can easily do without us. It is time to retool. We have learnt that the office does not need so many people and we could save billions of shillings and still work from home. In time, even our homes will be redesigned to create working spaces. We can happily do without spending thousands of hours in unnecessary traffic jams. We have been forced to redefine the meaning of success. In this terrible year profitability is less important and purely surviving is good enough.

We have a responsibility to preserve jobs and the dignity of our employees and that, in itself, is a success and is as rewarding as making money. Perhaps corona made us all rekindle our humanity. Most important of us, we have learnt to keep the faith. In the Quran, God promises us that “God will never give us more (trials) than we can bear”. In the Bible there is a pledge from Jeremiah (29:11) where the Lord promises us that “I have a plan for you to give you hope and a future”. Therefore keep the faith and keep moving on. I am praying that 2021 will be a better year for all of us.

- Mr Shahbal is chairman of Gulf Group of Companies.