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The remedy for dejection is hope. God made hopelessness unlawful by saying, “Do not despair of God’s mercy.”
Dejection is a state of sad thought, depression and a feeling of being worthless. This could be a result of anger with self or someone else, unexpressed anger, failure and frustration. Dejection is a deadly disease which can harm the body acutely or on a chronic basis and can irreversibly destroy one’s relationships. It is during this state of dejection that people have suicidal thoughts. During anger, however, a person tries to manifest his verbal and physical strength. During dejection, he completely gives up thinking he is no good. Dejection slowly builds up while anger is a more acute manifestation, which is like a moth which slowly eats away the human spirit and body.
Dejection can be the result of losses, financial, or of a dear one, or even failure in work, education and business. Many times, terminally ill patients, without any hope of getting better, would also be dejected. Sometimes dejection or depression is due to chemical imbalance just like anger. It could be a psychotropic condition with depletion of brain amines, epinephrine and dopamine or hormonal imbalance like hypo-thyroidism and Addison’s disease. Therefore, in all cases of depression, when a physician sees them, he does and he must evaluate them for a treatable organic cause.
The way to fight dejection again is a mind-control phenomenon. We must realise that we are not in control of our destiny. Certain failures and adversity have been designed to teach us certain lessons. We must know that someone else is in control of our past, present and future. This is how a believer in God is. Caliph Ali once said: “What makes me a believer in God is the fact that I realise that after doing everything humanly possible to make certain things go right, it goes wrong unexpectedly, making me believe that someone else was in control of that situation, not me.”
When we give good advice to our teenaged children, encouraging them to do good and avoiding something wrong and they don’t listen, as a result they get into trouble. It is human to be sad, but it is unnecessary to be dejected, thinking that I am not a good parent. We will be questioned for things we can do that we must do, but we will not be questioned on things that are beyond our control.
The remedy for dejection is hope. God made hopelessness unlawful by saying, “Do not despair of God’s mercy.” Thus, no matter at what level of despair, depression and frustration we are, whether loss of a loved one or a job, or as the result of anger from someone else, we must not give up hope as there is a ray of hope at the end of the tunnel. The greatest hope is mercy from God. Hope is the medicine which keeps one alive and going, which is when we say, hang on, we mean hang onto the thread of hope.
It is not unnatural to be sad over situations and events. Even Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) used to be sad, looking at the plight of unbelievers and their rejection of his message of oneness of God. And God reminded him by saying, “It is not your duty to make them Muslims, but just proclaim the truth, and God gives guidance to those whom He wishes.”
During dejection, there is darkness, but in hope, there is light. Therefore, one must pray for this light to illuminate the heart so that we can see beyond what is causing the suffering today. If I knew that I would not see tomorrow, I might get depressed, but the fact that I hope I will see tomorrow with all its goodness, the love of my family, my friends, dear ones, the flowers, that I go to sleep in peace, turning myself to God. We must pray for God’s mercy and forgiveness so that we can love and forgive ourselves and God’s other creations and have peace with ourselves, our Creator and our surroundings.
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