The feel of frustration is overwhelming. It’s that constant burn in your gut, the tightening in your chest, the grit in your eyes. And it never burns as bad, or as strongly, as when you’re engaged in some Sisyphean challenge.

You take it step by aching step to build, to nurture, to protect this thing inside you. Its nourishment is your blood, its substance your soul. You’re promised great reward in the end, but the track you’re treading is being paved with your sweat, blood, and tears. It’s a steep incline; a long way up. And as soon as you reach a landmark, as soon as that thing gives back an inch you’re falling, tumbling, avalanching back down. The only mercy is, you stop a mere inch ahead of your last point. And so it goes: two steps forward, one step back. Locked in an eternal struggle against self and society. 

But there is hope. Unlike Sisyphus, we will make it.

Eventually. InshAllah.