:salamext:
Jazak Allaah khayr for your explanations and ideas. :)
I'll try explaining how its abit more deeper than that:
I'll start off with the ladder on the left first insha'Allah.
We're all born on the fitrah - which is the middle ground, we incline to do good and believe in Allah because He has programmed us this way. As we grow up, depending on our place where we grow - our fitrah gets played about with and can alter depending on who we get to know and who our friends are etc. it also includes family.
Therefore a person who has alot of violence in their house as an innocent child will hate the abuse. [Now refer to the green and red paths] - you are the blue line. You have two options when you see that abuse, you can either learn from it and tell yourself that you should go somewhere to the ones who will have a better influence on you (going to the masjid and learning about islam), or instead you will get depressed and hang around with those who do other things to keep themselves busy (i.e. use intoxicating drugs etc.)
If you walk down the good path (green) - you may face obstacles on the way. However, if you are sincere in wanting to be a good muslim - then you will overcome them obstacles due to your sincerety and Allaah will guide you towards the good and make that path easy for you insha'Allah.
The same can be said about the bad path (red) - you may face obstacles on the way. However, if you are sincere in wanting to do evil [maybe to get popular, or so the evil people like you etc.] then you will overcome them obstacles anyway due to your sincerety of wanting to persist in that evil.
Now refer to the ladder again; when you are born - your on the level ground [on fitrah.] You enjoy doing good, and you hate doing evil. When you do good, you want to get rewarded and you want attention for the good that you do. The more good you do, the more you are loved and you still have that 'innocence' inside of you. The more good you do, if you are sincere in wanting to do it to please Allah, He will give you a sense of calmness/tranquility in the heart and a great reward in the afterlife insha'Allah.
However, if a person gets involved in sin and hangs around with bad people - their likely to follow the faith of their friend. So if their friend is inclined to do evil, the person will try to do the same so he/she can fit in with society, or their friends.
They may be at fitrah stage at first, but the more the person pushes themselves into the sin - they may feel scared at first, but as they keep sinning - that feeling of guilt dissapears. The more the person sins, the more they will fall into the darkness and turn away from the light. Because the person persists in this evil way, their heart goes hard and is covered in total darkness. The person gets emotionless and doesn't really care that much about anyone but him/herself. His heart is covered in black and this can only be removed with good deeds and repentance [sincere tawbah.] Because the fitrah has been altered, the heart desires evil and hates what is good.
The person who is void of guidance and has a hard heart actually enjoys the fact that they don't care about others. They feel that this world is cold so they think its a one man mission. The mistake they make is that they may feel their kool, but the more they sin - the deeper they are pushing themselves into the fire. They might not believe in hellfire, but this is what shaytaan is calling them to. And the person will only realise the evil they did at the moment when the soul will reach the throat [at the time of death.] but it will be too late to turn back that day.
Anyone who's experienced the life of darkness can easily tell you how hard it was to change themselves to good again. Why was this? It's because they had to climb back up the ladder again from darkness and only after they had reached their fitrah stage once again were they able to climb towards the light. This only occured because they were sincere to Allah, so Allah guided their hearts and brought them towards the light.
A good example of this is 'Umar bin Khattaab (may Allah Almighty be pleased with him) - when men would feel scared to bury their girls alive, 'Umar would be the one they would turn to. And he would bury them alive instead. He drank so much alcohol that if he hadn't given up - some scholars said that he may have died at a young age. He was of the most severest in torturing the muslims along with Abu Jahl, but look how Allaah guided him ('Umar) and how he was of the people who was promised jannah in this life. Why was this? Because of his sincerety and whole heartedly accepting islaam.
The sahabah loved islaam because they had seen the evil consequences of society without islaam, they needed a way of life so they could distinguish between right and wrong. Praise be to Allah, Allah revealed the Qur'an and what is one of the names of the Qur'an? It's called the Furqaan because it distinguishes between right and wrong.
Those who follow its guidance can only truely understand its blessing if they were to experience the life of evil and corruption.
This may be why you see alot of the muslim youth turning away from the book of Allah because they feel they have limits to what they can or cannot do and because they are not sincere, the irony is that the ones who have experienced the life of evil are the ones who want to turn to good because they know that without guidance - they are running around this world blindly without no directions, whereas those who have the guidance infront of them want to run away from the guidance and get lost in this dunya because of their desires and shaytaans whispers. [waswasa]
One can only truely understand the blessings of Allah if they are sincere. And the one who isn't sincere may not find his/her way to jannah (paradise.)
O you who have believed, enter into Islam completely [and perfectly] and do not follow the footsteps of Satan. Indeed, he is to you a clear enemy. [Qur'an 2:208]
Allaah Almighty knows best.
If i made any mistakes, may Allah azawajal forgive me and all the muslims. ameen.