Essay: Living with oxymorons

I saw the new words crucible and epiphany in "Conversaional Leadership" by Lan Liu. It was a conversation between Lan Liu and Bill George. Bill George explained "Crucible is an experience and epiphany is realization". The conversation was how realization of their life experiences led people to find themself, their purpose of life and added values to their lives. The conversation made me think back the crucibles of my life.

Born in a place of oxymoron, I think we lived blesesed and disguised lives. Family values are highly appreciated, yet there is not much of societal values. There are many proverbs and sayings which emphasize importance of education but all you can easily find is certificate not education. We belive in Mahayana Buddhism which strongly encouraged people to ask "Why" for every act, yet we are discouraged from asking questions. We were taught selflessness since young but the situation favoured us only to struggle for our own survival hence we thought life is all about scarcity. Those who couldn't understand "law of abundance" would have thin chance to be selfless. With this background of life, I think crucible of my life is finding truth. I find it difficult to differentiate between the truth and the relative truth. It is really painfully hard to dream and live the dream.

Life seemed more meaningful while I was struggling for survival. Now I think I have overcome that phase of life. What is the next step when we gained security for our own life? By now, I am quite sure that living a financially secured life is highly possible. Most of us are working hard to fulfill the "wants" rather than the "needs". When peer pressure plays a very important role in life, wants become needs and luxiries become necessities.

At this moment, my past and present are so differnt that I do not know what to look for in the future. Like a person who just walked out from a dark room to the bright day light, I can't see clearly. May be I am poisoned by the partial information, incomplete understanding of pholosophies and paradigms; I couldn't see my own purpose of life.

Maybe I need to go back to the childhood or teens before I was influenced by any logics. Maybe I try to see the moments I enjoyed and try to uncover what I really like. Or, I recall the moments I didn't enjoy and collectively I might realize what I really appreciate in life. Anyway, what I am feeling now is "Life sucks whenever I try to find its purpose".