Then Why?

Because I know people are still suffering and I want to help.

The whole idea started when I met a woman who I failed to remember the name in a local IT conference. She was not an IT person. The only reason she appeared at the event was that the conference sponsors the non-profit organization she is working at. It is to help abused kids find new homes. She was standing at the booth for her organization.

I didn’t plan to stop at the beginning. But for some reason, I stopped. Since I have just gone through my depression episode and had the chance to talk to a PTSD patient during my episode. I just asked how many children that they’re trying to help suffer from PTSD. Then I offered the reason why I’m asking by sharing my own experience briefly and told her that I fully recovered (which I truly believed back then, but didn’t know a relapse would happen soon). 

Then what happened next shocked me. She was a lady that looks very professional and know what she was talking about. However, she suddenly broke into tears and told me about her own struggle and her mom’s full life struggle with Depression. I tried to share more of my journey to comfort her down and reassure her that “no matter how dark and long the tunnel seems, the light is waiting at the end”

“It must be God that sent you to me at this moment”. She said. 

I didn’t, don’t, and won’t consider myself an angel or even any better than other individuals in this world. I’m just one of you, normal people that unfortunately have to suffer from illness, physical pain, emotional pain, and the possibility to lose all we own today. For losing all, if I lose all by die suddenly from an accident or cancer or being killed, I consider myself lucky; because it’s even harder if I actually lose everything I have owned in this world: money, properties, but much harder ones: relatives, families, children, wife and all the love. 

That’s why I want to speak up, to tell you that you’re not alone, to assure you that there are a purpose and reason behind all these pains. That’s what I choose to believe. And it helps. 

Is this a new religion? 

The last thing we need in this world is another religion. But don’t get me wrong, religion is probably the only reason our society could exist today, we might be still groups of monkeys (not to mention many of us won’t be born at all because there is no modern agriculture to support all of our lives). Yuval Noah Harari has explained this point very well in his book “Spaiens: A brief history of mankind”,  much better than I could. 

I grew up in China and considered myself Atheism until my depression and started asking the ultimate questions to myself. I have tried to find the answers from religious books, started from Buddhism, then read more about the history of all major religions: Christian, Islam, Judaism, and so on. Then I realize that there is the possibility that there is one God, but serving as the God for all these “different” religions. 

I have to be careful here because may have felt being offended. To all religious people, they believe in heart that only their God(s) is the real one. All others are believing in the wrong thing. I’m not saying any of them is wrong. I’m offering another possibility, which is “the God” (could bear different names), no matter which religion’s God, is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), omnipresent (all-present), and omnibenevolent (all-good).  Since that’s true to all, why couldn’t it be that God is showing itself to a different group of people with different forms? Is it possible all Gods are the same? The trinity (the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit) is accepted by so many Christians, why not the infinity? God should be able to show up in the world in any form that he/she/it wants. 

No, it’s not a new religion. I believe in God but don’t want to label myself with any tag. No matter which religion, God(s) has always told us to do Good, to Help, and to Believe. That’s what I’m doing with my site. Please do the same if you can. 

You are just one of us, how could you help?

To share my experience, to remind you to start your own thinking, and figure out your own answer. More importantly, to figure out how to suffer less and enjoy life, and join me in helping others.

History just repeats itself, which is only true in some way, because it repeats in a different form like an upward spiral. People today in this current world are already much more civilized than our ancestors. Can you imagine only 100 to 200 years ago, slavery was still considered normal by many? Can you imagine only 100 to 200 years ago, some countries still punish people by chopping off their heads, or even kill his/her whole family because of some crime that he/she committed alone?

Many asked questions about Germany, which was a country that raised smart philosophers like Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), but also the country that raised Adolf Hitler (1889-1945). Doesn’t it make more sense to reverse the order? Hitler first and then Kant and Schopenhauer?

It happens in this way for a reason. Pain, sorrow, and anger is the only way to reach to peace and true happiness. History repeats itself by creating challenges and imperfections for all of us so that we do think deeper and not give up to reach for the answer to the ultimate question. 

The world won’t be ideal and we’ll face new challenges, pandemics like COVID, global warming, wars between religions, races, countries, and so on. But we have the choice, if we know how to balance, how to listen, how to think one more step and not stopped at the 1st intuitive response, we can definitely avoid a “World War III” or any other terrible tragedies to ourselves. 

Still not get what you are trying to say. 

These things are not easy to get. I learned in a hard way that there is no single truth. There is a single fact, but there will be various interpretations, all true in our heads. 

That’s why even Christianity has so many different branches. People get the how much faster than why. If you really don’t why, how becomes the arbitrary boundary to separate us into different groups, even though on the why layer, we share exactly the same goal. 

The whole purpose of my writing is to show you by cases, by metaphors, and intrigue you to figure out your why. Hopefully, at least you’ll be much more willing to listen to a different opinion, willing to dig deeper behind the seemly “ridiculous” belief or suggestion. Only by doing that, we won’t fool ourselves by our biases and make things worse by creating a “positive feedback loop”, which is really not that positive and needs to be controlled all the time. 

I hope that I didn’t lose you. Let me know if you are still confused and I’ll try to polish my message better, but at least please believe me in this:

“The intention is to help you,

not to make myself famous or rich,

but in the end, I’ll benefit from and being helped by you”. 

What I’m going to repeat over and over is something that doesn’t make sense at the first sight:

To not suffer from the pain too much, accept and embrace the pain quickly; 

To become a successful person, help others successful first;

To truly help people, don’t help them too much by offering all they need;

To true happiness, don’t attach too much to the things that bring happiness to you: money, title, and trophies.