How Do I Cope?
Trying to find a formula to deal with life without believing in God
My father is an atheist and my mother is a believer. Therefore as a child, I had the choice to be either and I chose to be an atheist. I could not understand the rationale behind praying and having a God. I could not muster the faith to believe and so I went on the path of logic.
But ultimately, I realised that believing or not is more about wanting a God than about science or logic.
My father is an honest and hard-working man without a God. Well, so is my mother with a God. They both are strong and successful individuals.
So basically having or not having a God did not make any difference in the way of their living.
This reaffirms my understanding that believing is more of a personal choice rather than having a guideline for leading life.
I don’t need a God
I have always felt that I do not need the fear of God to do right things, I will do them because that’s right! I do not need a God to do well in life, I will work hard and deserve everything I get. So basically, I do not need a God to either keep me on the right track in life or to make me do better. I can handle those things myself.
I am confident I don’t need a God
Slowly as I grew up and saw the gray shades of life, I started understanding the requirement of God a little more. As explained by many, when nothing else works, hope is what carries you through. So people need God to give them hope to tide over the bad times. Well, I thought — I still do not need God since I am optimistic enough to find hope within myself and have a wonderful support system of family and friends to manage the bad times whenever they come.
Do I really not need a God?
But today, as I just got to know that a close family friend of ours is detected with having cancer, I faltered. I was shocked first and then deeply saddened. I could not understand why such a nice human being would have to go through this trauma. Of course, this is not the first instance of getting to know about good people having to face bad problems. But this incident just got me thinking more and made me write.
Now when I do not have a God, whom do I ask for the reason of this suffering? Whom do I complain to?
Basically how do I cope up with this unfairness of life?
No, I still don’t need a God
Cope up I must, otherwise I would be a depressed soul with all the hurt and sufferings around me. So, I have made up my own formula.
The first thing that came to my mind when trying to find a rhyme and reason to this suffering was balance.
Yin and yang, black and white, dark and light, suffering and joy — everything comes in balance. We would not enjoy the pleasant days as much as we do if we didn’t have the unpleasant ones. We appreciate and value things that we obtain with difficulty more that the easy achievements.
All true but the balance is not be quite equal since some people have so much more suffering to endure while for some, life looks like a breeze.
This is where I start getting the feeling of unfairness in life and so this is where my mind has found two elucidations.
Firstly, when we feel that someone’s life is a breeze or a burden, reality may be different. We can never know the devils or delights of the body and mind of the other person without literally stepping into their shoes.
A seemingly perfect life of someone else may be far from it and a life filled with pain may have such sparks of joy that they could brighten the rest of the gloomy days.
Secondly, everybody who must go through some pain must suffer for experiencing something that was required in their lives.
I think bad times are not tests as believers say but rather lessons that teach us some valuable things that we were meant to learn.
Based on my illumination, I have decided to do a simple thing — appreciate life.
We must value what we have and be happy while also making others happy so that we do not have to go through the bad times to learn these lessons.
Of course, we may try our best but if there remain things to be learnt, we will have to face tough situations to learn them.
Of course, this is my personal formula to cope up and may not make any sense to others.
But I am just glad that this formula of mine lets me, still not need a God!
