Islam. Arduous, is it?

"yes, I am proud to be a Muslim but I can't follow the rules in there,  they're too difficult in today's life"

Do you have the same thoughts? What do you think is difficult? Five times prayer a day or to follow our prophet's teachings? It hardly takes five minutes to offer the fardh namaz,  which is obligatory. I know there are times when you're just stuck at work, traveling, classes, parties or just chilling around the city, but did you forget that it was your Lord who gave you this moment to live. It was him who gave you that job,  it was him who gave you that moment to enjoy, it was him who blessed you with everything,  even then can't you pause your work for five minutes to pray? No matter where you are, there is a way to offer it. Allah has made it quite flexible and yet we fail to pray!  The five-time prayer is a gift given by Allah. A gift given by your friend would be valuable, this is a gift given by the Lord of the whole universe and no value for it? 

Now you might be thinking what kind of a gift is this? Well,  at least I thought that once and then someone explained. Imagine you've got a promotion in your company and you became the CEO of the company. Happiness would be on peaks, right? You'll be happy because you're position in the company just went a level up, you'll be willing to do more work because you'll be given more salary, right? 
Well,  now apply the same logic here, when Allah gifted this ummah with the five prayers, didn't our position increase? Our chance to impress Allah increased, our blessings increased, our chances to ask forgiveness increased and if you think of it as a burden then you're just plain stupid. Who wouldn't be happy to please the only Lord who gave you life and who's gonna give you the Jannah? Just for this fake world,  are we willing to sacrifice our life hereafter which is gonna last till eternity? We are often hopeless and lost about our lives, ever wondered why? It's because we're creating a distance between our souls and Allah. Our souls have come from him and crave for his blessings so there's no way the soul can be contented with this worldly pleasure, this is why we are strangers to peace these days. All the efforts go down the drain when it comes to a peaceful life. He is the only one who can give you happiness, sadness, peace and everything else.

 As for the teachings of the Prophet (P.B.U.H), did he ask us to leave the world and only get involved in the religion? No my dear,  he did not. All the work we do today,  he just told us how to do it in a way that'll not only get the work done efficiently but that work of yours will be noted down as your good deed and you will be rewarded for that. Let's take a simplest of the daily acts, wearing your shoes or slippers. How do we wear it?  Putting on our feet and just rush out. But prophet said that we must put in our right foot first saying 'Bismillah' proceeded by the left foot.  While removing it, remove your left foot first. Simple. Doing the same act will earn you deeds. Don't give the name of superstition to any of prophet's teaching because he never made a rule on his own. Every word he said was Allah's command and if we say that it must be a superstition then we'd be doing a kabirah gunah by doubting Allah's knowledge. All these supplications we have are nothing but asking Allah's guidance before we do anything, it is in arabic just because our prophet's mother tongue was arabic. There's no wrong if we ask for guidance in our mother tongue too, but arabic is preferred. 
Such easy ways to be rewarded for and is still Islam difficult to follow?

We often complain of being sad, broken and lonely, and then we usually get caught by the shaitan, who makes us do bad stuff and then we expect that bad stuff to give us relief, yeah? Well, forget about drinking and all,  least of the wrong we do these days is listening to songs when we're sad saying 'Music heals and comforts you', no it doesn’t. It reminds you all of the moments you actually have to forget, it sure does comfort for sometime but it’ll also take you deeper in depression and nothing good happens out of it. We crave for a relief and doing the bad stuff will help a lot, yeah?  Dude, what's wrong? Doing the bad stuff will anger Allah and he is the one who gives you happiness, if you displease him then where the hell would you get happiness from? Allah loves us more than 70 mothers love added together, you still think he would let us feel the pain? No my dear,  Allah is the most merciful and most beneficent. Think what you've done to displease Allah and fix that habit of your first. Next time you're struck by a hurricane in your life, go back and check your acts. Allah does not punish his slave immediately,  he gives us time to ask forgiveness and then we are given what we deserve. 

Once someone told  me that Allah says that he made the whole universe for us, and he made us for him.  Isn't that so beautiful? Imagine a mother decorating her kid's room with everything the kid likes and then surprises him saying that everything in this room belongs to him, now the kid innocently asks her "Mommy, you did all this for me?" mother says "Yes my darling, every bit of this is for you". The kid frowns a bit and says "Isn't there anything for you, mommy?", the mother smiles gently and asks "Don't you belong to me?" Will the kid not be overjoyed listening to that? Of course yes,  then why aren't we? Allah made every single thing on this earth for us,  the beautiful nature, the delicious food we savor,  the loving people we have in our lives,  the precious time we've got,  every single bit is for us and all Allah asked for in return is to be grateful to him. He asked us to pray and follow his beloved prophet's sunnah and not to disobey him, that's all. Just a smile is a sadaqa (charity) in our religion, even if our subconscious does it,  we will be rewarded for it. Think,  is Islam difficult to follow or are we missing out diamonds blindfolded by this worldly bliss? All the souls have come from Allah and will return back to him. One day we have to report to Allah with whatever deeds we have. Will we be able to face Allah drenched in the ocean of sins? The easiest yet the most difficult way to stop ourselves from doing the bad stuff is before doing anything, ask yourself first "Will Allah be happy if I do this? What if he gets angry because of this act of mine and what if I die before I could even ask for forgiveness?" I doubt we'd do anything wrong of we have the courage to answer it honestly. Every act of ours that’ll sadden Allah is reason for our misery. Do you still dare to say you’re not responsible for the distress you’re drowning in?

I'm not a person with enormous Islamic knowledge nor am I a good muslim. This is just an effort to get myself on the right path and I hope it helps you too.

May Allah forgive me if I've written anything wrong in here. May Allah guide us to the right path. Ameen