How a Wish to Start An Independent Business could lead to a Divorce

How a Wish to Start An Independent Business could lead to a Divorce (A Life’s Story)

How a Wish to Start An Independent Business could lead to a Divorce

Yesterday, there was a post about a story of a muslim brother who desired to start a business, and eventually he decided to resign from his established work in a company. Then he started a business, and so on. But because he was still a newbie in business world, thus he was shocked with its environment, or he was unable to adjust himself with the hardship of starting a new business, he was slumped and heavily indebted, while his children were growing up, then his pregnant wife was unable to cope with their condition…there the story went till finally, a divorce was unavoidable.

This tragic story became the topic of our morning coffee talk – me and my wife – yesterday, when before we jumped into it, my wife told me about her friend’s post in the Facebook wall. Coincidentally, we have a similar situation with the story, but with several differences.

There were several points that we jotted down from this story.

1. Don’t let yourself be an easy prey for the business motivators

Probably the brother in this story were highly influenced by the bombastic motivation he heard. Well, it’s well-known to some of us that those motivators mostly gave hyperbolical hopes by telling exaggerated success stories of the businessmen. Here are   a few examples of their stories:

– 5 years ago, a person bravely left his post as a manager in a certain company then started his own business, and by now he already have more than 100 employees.

– Starting from pushing a cart, only in 2-3 years, certain entrepreneur now is able to open 5 branches of his business with the turnover rate of billions of rupiahs.

– And the likes.

I don’t deny that it could happened, although there were parts of the story that was exaggerated and some were hidden.

Such motivation is undoubtedly will easily tickle anyone’s emotion, whose ambition is to start a business. Its a part of the method of storytelling, that is marketing a concept/opinion/discourse with a story that is heavily laden with emotional contents that could drag an object to follow the emotional stream line of the story. As a result, many people were unconsciously following the concept seller, thus they did as the motivator’s wish.

The conclusion is, don’t swallow just the sweets, but chew the bitter part first till it got smoother.

2. Business motivation that was dominated by the spirit to be ‘the boss’, and unwillingness to be commanded by others

This is also becoming a trend in the current world of entrepreneurship. But this is also a very troubled motivation. Why is that? Because it is also motivate people to be arrogant.  In reality, I often met some people who highly respected the status of businessman or business owner, but underestimated the status of employee or worker. Mostly they are the fan of the entrepreneur virus. Thus we would often hear from those who loved to talk about entrepreneurship, a saying, “It is better to be the boss of our own business, albeit small, than follow others albeit the company is large.”

Some times ago, while selling, a youth said to me, “Well, its great isn’t it, to have a business of our own, and not get bossed around.” I replied, “Pardon me, but if I may choose, I’d rather be a shopkeeper of a decent scholar and being bossed by him, rather than having several shops of my own.”

The conclusion of this point is: this motivation desires and trains us to be confident, but with the method of arrogance.

There is a saying, “A business can still run while we can have leisure time.”

Think about this saying. This is the motivation to be a rich man, a business owner, to retire early, have a passive income, go on the spree, be idle, if we want something we just order our employee, and so on. A motivation that is far from the character of a muslim.

3. Business motivation generally leads to love of the world.

Well, that is the reality. Those who were infected with the entrepreneur virus mostly desired to be rich, to be a boss (prefer to order than being ordered), to be idle, to be free from regulations, to retire early, and so on.

Probably they were also motivated by the wish to spend more alms, to open many job offers, and give many benefits to others. But if we are being true to ourselves, then we’ll realize that the end of those motivations is still the love of the world and gaining riches. In fact, there are many of them who give alms just because they hope to be rich fast.

4. Motivation to be an entrepreneur because of other than Allah will be useless

This is the final point. When someone felt the hardship to worship, because the regulation in his company were less supportive, then he resigned from his job. Or someone resigned from his company because there were many wrongdoings happened in it, in which he feared himself not being able to maintain his steadfastness in religion. Or someone resigned because he didn’t want to take care of the usury transaction that became the task in his position. Or because of other reasons which main point was to protect his religion. Then he chose to be an entrepreneur, to be able to control his own work, manage his time, to be better in educating his family, and to be better in patience and self-reliance to Allah. Then this kind of man is far better than any other businessman, no matter how successful they are, but their goals are just to get the title of businessman, or due to the love of wealth, and love of the world.

A little addition for the wives:

Allah the Exalted gives more rights to a husband, not because of the number of money that he gives, but because of his responsibility in providing the livelihood for his family.

—–

Written by a weak person, who’s in his way to build romanticism in the middle of shortages)

Author: Hudiya S Hakim

One thought on “How a Wish to Start An Independent Business could lead to a Divorce (A Life’s Story)

  1. azyasacar says:

    it all depends on the niat of the man itself.

    Rich doesn’t always mean evil, in this monetary system that we’re facing being able to help others is a joyful and righteous act.
    we all know that there is 2 major rules that split this universe
    Sunnatullah & Syariatullah, a muslim must possess both of them.

    being financially independent doesn’t always mean being idle,
    it means more time to do good deeds, and more power to help.

    it all comebacks to the niat of the man.

    There is always various angle on every matter, perhaps next time present both of them.

    Jazakallah khairan kasiran

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