Life is fair and is even with good things and bad things half and half.
Posted by: kirin on 
Nov 25th, 2009 | 
Filed under: Book Review
When you have sequence of negative experience, sadness, madness, disappointment, failure, and etc. don’t you think you feel like blaming your fate?
When I was younger, I couldn’t stop comparing my life or myself with my friends’, although I knew that was completely nonsense. It just made me sad whenever I wondered why my family was not happy while my friend’s one was, why I was so bad at math, why I had less good friends, why, why, why…and that only tortured myself more and more…
This bad habit didn’t change even after I started working. Whenever I saw my colleagues’ good designs and cool ideas, I questioned myself “Was I able to come up with such an idea? No, I don’t think so…” and I was upset.
There’s no one who has only good things, and vice versa. That’s too natural to be told. Yes, I know. But I want that to be told from time to time. SInce most of Japanese people do not have religion, which however doesn’t mean that we don’t believe in whatever God, I think I sometimes want to listen to preaches from someone who has deep experience of his life.
Lately I read a book “Seifu no housoku (正負の法則)“. It means principle of positive and negative in this universe. And this book taught me something very interesting.
According to the author, Akihiro Miwa, anyone’s life is even with good things and bad things happening equally. One of the parts I found interesting was that if your life is too many good things so far, you’d better go for charity or something before bad things actually occur to you. If you just enjoy good things, you will have to have very bad things to balance your life, because that’s how life is supposed to be.
In that sense, he says if your life is so-so or OK, that’s considered good enough because you wouldn’t have very bad things to set off. People would envy beautiful, rich, popular and successful people, but they should have negative things to set off such positive things.
I thought that’s one of the reasons why celebrities or rich people make donation often, in order to set off their too many positive things.
My life has become something more relaxed since I stopped comparing.
This book also made me expect good things from so many bad things so far happened in my life. 
What do you think? Have you heard of similar story?
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November 25th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
It's a good thing you don't compare yourself to others anymore. Doing that and making yourself depressed just won't change things. If one envy others of what they have, then they should just strive hard to achieve it (the things that one envy about) if they really want that, instead of just pondering over it and blaming oneself for not having it. Ain't it? Talking bout negative and positive, I guess it's similar with the life is a rollercoaster concept, having its ups and downs. I believe that we should live for the present, learn from your past and hopefully it'll lead to a good future. I mean, life is just once right? Better not waste the precious time pondering too much over things you don't like or those you can't change. There's a saying that I heard from a movie that goes like this, "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present." And I think it's a good one! =)
November 25th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
You know grass is always greener on the other side. While you think your friend or colleague has a good life or a good situation, human by nature what what they don't have. When I was little I was always jealous about my friend who live in a nice neighborhood, has good grades in school, has a maid, and has nice clothes. But, she doesn't have the freedom and the independence I have as we've grown up. She can't take care of herself and still lives with her family, probably until she gets married.
I agree, you can't have all but good things or all but bad things. There might be cases on the extreme of either spectrum, but no one person would have all one or the other. I'm sure you've heard that the rich people want something, they're not different than anybody else. Everyone has something they want, is how you get there that defines the person.
November 25th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Hello! ^_^ I also think that everyone has his/her share of good and bad things, it's no use comparing lives because we are all different persons, not better or worse, just different ^_^ Also, I feel that it's a tough think to analyze your whole life very often, it's too much. Don't you feel better when you concentrate on small things like how to prepare a good meal, read a good book, write an important project, organize a meeting with friends or a romantic walk with someone special? I believe that we should analyze LIFE only when we need to take an important decision, we should stay optimistic, do our best and don't be too harsh on ourselves, we are who we are, we can become better but essentially, there's no failure, there's just a human being
November 26th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Nice article. Happy Thanksgiving Day!! Since the start of my blog, I fell in love with this festival.
November 26th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
I remember the one "yesterday…." was sent by chain mail years ago. I think I wasted so much time for pondering when I was younger. -_- It took me a long time until I don't care about my inferiority so much. I pay more attention to my superiority now.
November 26th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Thank you for sharing your story, Patty. I sometimes wonder why I was so envious of what my friends had. I really had hard time throwing that idea away completely. -_-?
November 26th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I like your saying "just different" and I think that is it! I think I had been so harsh to myself in my young days. When I was before 10, I was thinking what brought me to this world and what was the purpose of my life.
But as time passed, I am very relaxed now, finally free from such way of thinking.
Thank you for your comment!
November 26th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Thanks for sharing this story, its good to open up to the general public at times.
By the way nice blog you have here.
Dino |
November 29th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
I know this feeling too well. What I've learnt is that being successful is being happy in your life. Find things in life that you enjoy, not someone else.
November 30th, 2009 at 12:28 am
Thank you. I liked your saying, "being successful is being happy in your life!"
November 30th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I used to be the same – comparing and wishing things were better/different from how they were – that everything was 'unfair' or never enough. After some years I finally realised that thinking like that takes too much time and effort! And since I'm kind of lazy, why use so much energy to be unhappy?
Perfection doesn't exist so it's silly to be unhappy over it… just accept life as it is, with both ups and downs.
Of course I still sometimes forget myself, but I try not to complain or compare, because it doesn't help! It's much nicer to be happy or content with your life as it is, because like you said it's always changing.
Thank you for a great article – it's nice to have some internal conversations/thoughts here, helps me keep on track also!
December 1st, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Oh, was it nice to have such an internal conversation? ^ ^; I was actually wondering how people would think after I posted this…hahaha. I like reading, and I found what I've just read was interesting to be shared. I'm happy you enjoyed that. Thank you.
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