After reading this question please don’t think of me as a materialistic person, I am just honestly trying to ask a question that has always been on my mind. Since I started going to school I was told by my parents to work hard, and that is all what I did for all those years for my life. I always got my grades and even now I do. However over the past few years I have realized one thing. I know that only God decides who gets what but still sometimes it is extremely painful to see people not only getting away with the help of cheating, bribing etc. I don’t know why sometimes due to this I feel a loss. I feel that this problem might stay with me forever. I mean even once I graduate sometimes I might not be preferred because I was playing a fair game. Some how this just makes me lose the will to pray. I mean I will pray but my devotion might not be there. Sometimes I feel that I even lose my devotion towards studying. I hope that you can help me sort this problem out.
Because this worldly life is a trial and it is not the place where you can get the true results for your efforts, things are going to remain, at least on some occasions, the way they are. The reason for this being so is that in order for this life to be a trial, there has to be freedom allowed to people. That freedom is then both used and abused. Had there been no possibility of it being abused, there wouldn’t have been a trial.I am not suggesting that you give up working hard or looking for good opportunities in life. Go for the good opportunities the Almighty has made available for you, stretch yourself as best as you can to do justice with the talent the Almighty has given you, but never be too obsessed with the idea of achieving success in this life. True success can only come in the Hereafter, where everyone is going to be judged in accordance with his/her sincerity and efforts. Success of this world is always a bonus and a trial in itself.
What I am saying then is that you change the focus of your attention from this life, which can never be fair, to the next one, which is bound to be fair. However, in order for your next life to be successful, you have to do well in this life morally and spiritually. In order for a good moral and spiritual performance, you need to do well with the talent the Almighty has given you. If while using that talent, you achieve worldly success too, thank your God for it. If you don’t achieve much, don’t be disappointed, because success was never guaranteed to you in this life. In the process, if you lose because others in competition are not playing a fair game, you are not, in reality, a loser. It is those who are apparently gaining some worldly success though wrong means who are losing in the real sense. If you can, have sympathy for such people and try to help them understand the fact that what they are achieving in this world in the manner they are doing it is going to cause them to confront lots of difficulties in the next life.
The Qur’an says:
The one who desires the rewards of this fleeting life alone, We shall give him in it what We shall desire, but then We have prepared for him Hell wherein he will fall despised, helpless. And the one who desires the rewards of the Hereafter and strives for it befittingly, and is a true believer as well, the rewards of such a person are never going to be wasted. As for this life, We bestow all – those who are obsessed with the love of this life and those who are striving for the Hereafter – with the blessings of your Lord. And you will not find the grace of your Lord withheld from any of them. See if you want to confirm how We have exalted some over others in this life, but be sure that the life of the Hereafter is far better both status wise and quality wise. (17:18-21)
(Courtesy: http://www.khalidzaheer.com/qa/789)