You Are the Only One Who Can Save Yourself
The parable of a drowning man is a well-known story told in books, seminars and many other mediums. The story is about a drowning man in the flood. Out of desperation, he prayed to god, thinking that god would come and save him.
After a while, a boatman came by and kindly asked the drowning man to get on his boat. The drowning man refused “I have faith in god, he will save me”. The boatman left.
The drowning man was barely surviving. And helicopter descended out of the clouds and sent him the ladder, saying “Grab the ladder, we are here to save you”.
The drowning man responded, “I have faith in God, he will save me”.
The helicopter left and the man died and went to heaven.
He got to meet the god and asked him “God, I had unwavering faith in you, why didn’t you come and save me?”
God was wavering his head and responded “I sent you a boat and a helicopter, what else do you want”?
To sum up this parable, I came to the conclusion that even god can not save the ones who are not willing to be saved.
In life, we come across challenges and distressful and disastrous situations we have no control over. When encountering things like this, human beings split into two types. One is defeated by the situation, the other one can still see the light at the end of the tunnel. This light either can be the support someone has offered or the opportunity is present. They seize the tiny light of hope and move towards it.
They have a strong willingness to save themselves. Because they know that they are the only ones who can save themselves. They are the only ones who can make the move for themselves. Nobody else can do for them.
But, the ones who are defeated are trapped in the situation and cannot see when there are helping hands and opportunities around them. They are stuck in a narrow vision of hopelessness and cannot see through it.
Speaking of which, I have been both types myself. Some days, life felt like the end. There seemed no way out. I narrowly focused on the situation and hoped that someone could come and save me. I was a victim of life and desperate for attention.
Life throws challenges at you for you to grow and evolve. Traumatic events happen in our lives. By no means do we need them and can only grow going through traumas, certainly not.
If I had the superpower to stop any traumatic events happening to humanity, I would. Or heal the emotional turmoils that humanity has experienced. Yet, it is not realistic.
Things happen and they leave us have zero control over them. But, we can only control how we view the situation. Our perception and how we tell stories about it that matters.
Say if I post articles like this in Medium, I got no claps and comments, would I beat myself up and say
“Well, my article is a total crap, no one wants to read it and like it.” or would you rather say to yourself
“Well, it is the beginning of my writing journey, maybe my article isn’t providing enough value. I can improve as I go and network with other writers to learn from them”?
The second version sounds more empowering and gives me the choice to keep going forward. The point is that no one can think the way you do for yourself- you’re the one who’s holding the key.
If your articles are so good and get tons of engagement and comments. Yet you think your work doesn’t deserve it, then what’s the point? Again, you need to convince yourself you deserve it and no one else can do it for you.
Outer support can be of great courage for us to move forward. It can be a huge force for us to stand up again. Yet if we don’t use the key to unlock to receive the force, it will take us nowhere. After all, the owner of that key, the one who is taking the path is us, not anyone else.
Life’s hard. Remember to hold the key and have the faith in yourself.
Only when we save ourselves first, can we save others.
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