Hey God, why me?
I have seen a couple of people related / close to me who had a illness / suffering. One of them took it like “God choose me to have this suffering..I am the chosen one”. Went through Cancer treatment ..well almost laughing. The other person wanted the sympathies of everybody else. Went through a lot of pain and felt that ‘others’ were not helping
enough…etc. etc. and kept saying..”I have never done this..never done that..never harmed anybody..WHY ME?
Funny how 2 people react to the same situation differently. Here is a very nice story (incident) about Arthur Ashe:
Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS. From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: “Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease”?
To this Arthur Ashe replied: The world over
500 million children start playing tennis,
5 million learn to play tennis,
5 Lakh learn professional tennis,
50,000 come to the circuit,
5000 reach the grand slam,
50 reach Wimbledon,
4 the semi final,
2 reach the finals,
When I was holding a cup I never asked GOD “Why me?”
And today in pain I should not be asking GOD “Why me?”
I find that most of our lives are a series of things we do..when things go fine, we connect the dots and say ‘This was strategy. When things go wrong, we say Fate.
Start asking ‘Why me’ when things go right, it will keep you on your feet. Then you remember “This too shall pass”
Venshu
Very good one Subra. I remember having read the above story / incident sometime back but it had not registered very strongly in my mind. Reading the same story in your blog has had a diferent effect! No wonder subramoney.com is the first website I visit every morning. Thank you very much!!
pattu
Brilliant! I have forwarded this to all my students.
subra
Thanks prof. Pattu…nice to know that I have got into IIT :). This was perhaps the easiest way for me…!
Muthu
I’ve written in one of my recent comments that I don’t pray. This is the reason. God, being the power behind everything, is equally responsible for both ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Everything happens according to his will. ‘His’ is used as matter of convenience because ‘God’ is not a human being. As a spiritual quote goes ‘ Man made God in his own image’.
I’m not against prayers because it has its own Psychological payoff. I don’t pray because I don’t need this pay off and is of view that God is not a ‘person’ to be influenced by requests or tributes. If you pray and something happens, it would have equally happened without prayer also.
Infact in response to your view of synchrodestiny regarding reaching Supreme court on a rainy day, I wrote a topic in my blog ‘If God is responsible for good, who is responsible for bad?’.
Asoke
sorry Subra
was this article about a person’s ATTITUDE or about atheism? Did not understand 🙂
Muthu
Mr.Subra- May I request your permission to use the Arthur Ashe example in my blog. I’m inspired to write a sequel to my earlier blog ‘If God is responsible for good, who is responsible for bad’. Can I put the subject as ‘Why me’? Excepting quoting the above example, the writing will be of my own.
Prasad
A nice one Subra sir. Very simple yet inspirational. Thanks for sharing ..
Srikanth
The “Why me” question always reminds me of this Peanuts cartoon strip:
http://imgur.com/6dAqh.jpg
Muthu
Thank you Mr.Subra for your positive response to my email to use ‘Arthur Ashe’ incident. This article is very inspiring.
Asoke – It is about attitude only and not atheism. Also I’m not an atheist. What I wanted to say was I agree with Mr.Subra that one’s attitude is important as God is responsible for all aspects of one’s life, both good and bad. Probably I did not convey well what I wanted to convey. I would try to improve the quality of my comments.
Srinivas Muthadi
It is human nature to take credit for success and blame others (including God) for failure.
I believe this Kabir’s dohe which I was taught in school is apt here :
Sukh mey sumiran sabh karen, Sukh mey kare na koi
Jab sukh me sumiran karey, to dukh kahe hoi!
Any mistake in the dohe could be due to my failing memory :).
Sandip Sabnis
too good….Thanks
Suresh Vishwanathan
In our own experience Shyam when the market keeps going up there are very few questions asked and the investor is happy and when it comes down reasons are demanded. Life like the share markets can never ever be one sided. The good the bad and the ugly co-exist.
geetha
We tend to forget God when things are going smooth, saying no time.When we have trouble then we think of him, its human fault.Arthur Ashe is a inspiration and we must learn from this.
But let us remember there is a sunrise after sunset. If problems are given, then it is to learn from it.
umesh ikhe
I keep on reading this story when in confusion ” why me ?” ( Read this story earlier ) and every time it gives reality and motivation.