self-imposed burdens

"Allah wishes to lighten (the burden) for you; and man was created weak" Al-Nisa 28

This verse pulled at me today, while flipping through the Quran, and although to understand it, you need to know that the preceding verse talks about repentance, and how God wants to accept it from us, however following our desires (hey look at that... it seems to be a recurring theme so far) causes us self-inflicted deviation.

So, what was I thinking when this verse popped up at me? A couple of things. First, I was thinking... this burden is not light!!! In my head, I was like 'you have to be kidding', but then I remember something fatima (my friend) said to me, and yes this is paraphrasing, she said: That true, God doesn't burden a soul more than they can handle, but people can burden themselves in their woes and that can be too much for themselves. And well, it's true, God does wish to lighten our burdens, but we're weak, and burdens can come in the form of wolves in sheep clothing. Desires are appealing, but succumbing to them can have crazy triggered reactions, and those can be insanely burdensome. God saves us these burdens by simply abstinence (refraining from over-indulging in our desires).

Your desires are not only a personal thing, but they can effect society at large. A decision I may make, can reciprocate into the lives of other people. I might decide today to pull an all nighter, I get in a car accident that totals my car and detrimentally hurts the other driver. This other driver, even though was participating in the accident and reacting to the situation, had nothing to do with my decision to pull an all nighter, yet he was effected (he almost lost his life) by simply me not sleeping enough. (This actually happened in the past)

Anyway,
I'll stop now because I can feel 15 different tangents pulling at me simultaneously, and if i started writing them all down... well.. i'd never stop..