Powerlessness is precious. We feel powerlessness when we first attempt something, or when we try to take something we are already quite good at to the next level. We feel like we have become fools, and we feel despair. So, humans instinctively try to avoid powerlessness. As a result, they only chase immediate or certain pleasure and repeat irreversible mistakes.
People who try to avoid powerlessness cannot seriously learn new things. Anyone becomes a fool when they first learn Japanese, practice writing, or start drawing. There are people who are quite good for a first attempt because they are smart, but even those people cannot avoid feeling powerless about themselves when they enter a full-fledged level.
It is no exaggeration to say that how you deal with powerlessness determines your life. People who shift their attention to other things whenever they feel powerless end up being good at many things but not particularly outstanding at anything. Or they offset powerlessness by lowering their own standards. They think, “I’m not an outstanding person, just an ordinary person, so who can say anything if I only do this much? I’m just going to enjoy a simple life.” Both of these cases can be said to be cases where they reach a powerless ending because they dislike powerlessness.
On the other hand, there are people who do not avoid powerlessness and face it head-on. They break through the center of the feeling that they are fools and continue to advance through the fog. They cannot know how far they have come or how much is left. The feeling that they are foolishly powerless remains the same. So, they learn humility from the depths of their hearts. They continue to move forward while learning humility. After 1 year, 3 years, 10 years pass like that, that person reaches a completely different level. People around them are surprised at how a guy who was similar to them only 10 years ago can do that, or they pretend not to see it because they are even too proud to be surprised, and they console themselves by saying that money is the best or that eating delicious food is happiness.
Sometimes, powerlessness is so deep that it can collapse someone. Humans do something called prayer at such times. In the face of a situation that does not improve no matter how hard they try, in the face of various addictions that they cannot cut off no matter what, in the face of a personality that does not change no matter how much they try to change it, in the face of a bolt from the blue incurable disease diagnosis, in a chair in front of a family member’s operating room, hiding in the attic to avoid Nazi soldiers knocking on the door.
At that time when failing is natural and dying is natural, at the moment when they desperately admit their own powerlessness, saying that they can do nothing but pray, a miracle arrives. There is no miracle for someone who feels no powerlessness.
Do you believe in miracles?
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