Table of Content: HOW TO RAISE A RESILIENT KID: I AM NOT RIGHT BUT THAT’S OK
Some people get into the darkest hours of their lives because of religion.
Most people fear of death. However, it is not “death” which they are really afraid of. They are probably fearing the suffering of pre- or post-death experience of themselves or their love ones. They fear losing their bodies or their love ones. If they have always lived in the present moment and never thought about the future, like babies do, they will not feel fear. They feel fear about the future because they are “educated” to think forwards. They feel more fear when religion makes them think that death is not the end; there are “lives” after death and they need to do certain things in order to secure their future in another world. Religion is defined as “the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.” Atheism is not disbelief in religion or gods; it is simply lack of belief in religion or gods, like you are not sure whether gods do exist or not. You choose to trust nobody, not the one who say gods do exist or the one who say gods doesn’t exist. An Atheist simply don’t care and lives in the present moment; he/she simply face whatever happens the next second whether he/she likes it or not. After all, there is no proof that believing or disbelieving will change anything. No experiment can be conducted to show repeatable results. A wise person will never trust a salesman, although he would make purchase when the need arises.
Have you ever had a dream, that you seemed so sure it was real? But if you were unable to wake up from that dream, how would you tell the difference between the dream world and the real world? Zhuang Zi had a dream. He became a butterfly, flapping his wings and fly happily. He totally forgot that he was Zhuang Zi. He felt so real that he was a butterfly. After a while, he suddenly recalled there was a human named Zhuang Zi. He thought: “Whatever happened to Zhuang Zi? Am I not really a butterfly but a dreamy object of Zhuang Zi? Or Zhuang Zi was a dreamy object in my dream?” We feel we are real; we are so sure that we are alive in a physical world. But maybe we are just virtual characters in the dream of “ourselves” in another dimension. Everything we have (success, wealth, fame, relationship) are virtual; no matter how tight we grip it, all will be gone when we wake up. We felt so strongly that we know what is right and what is wrong, we are so serious with our lives; we make plans for our children thinking that those are perfect plans, and we expect to achieve certain goals. But in the end, we are wrong. Everything was just a dream. You are empty, so am I. Life is a dream, but most people only know it is dream when they wake up. Don’t take life so seriously. Don’t be a perfectionist. Have fun, enjoy your time in the dream, and go on an adventure. Don’t worry; when you get out of the dream; you become the real you again. The real you could be nothing or something. But, what difference does it make? You can’t change the real you from the dream. Even if you can do something, how do you or anybody knows what kind of change is perfect? You may as well relax and enjoy the ride.
I don’t know whether I am real or just a dreamy object. But I can choose to think that I am just a dreamy object and everything is not real. I make that choice because that makes me happier. Do I think forwards? Sure, I do. If I choose to believe that my plan will work, I will carry on with the plan. Whatever suggestion given to me serves as a guide but never a gospel. Not only you and me are empty, rules are empty too. I believe I can sometime change my dream (I think therefore I am) although I can’t always get what I want. It doesn’t matter to me; I don’t take it seriously, although I am meticulous in its execution, for the fun of it. I choose to feel fun doing it. Something will change, while certain things never change. Some rules work most of the time, while certain rules may still work once a while although the probability is close to zero. Should I make a bet? It is a choice; no good or bad, or there is good in bad and bad in good. Since nothing is real, I can’t really lose anything when nothing really belong to me. Darkest hours? Not belong to me, too.
RESILIENT KID 