If you want wisdom from the gods, then as a Taoist, you should know how wisdom is passed onto humans from the god’s side. It could come in many ways, but one of the most direct ways is to give you a way to experience it yourself and go through the problems yourself so you can figure out things and learn as you walk through the journey. It’s hard to believe because most people think that if you are a faithful Taoist, you should be protected by gods, and that means nothing bad should happen in your life; you should have the best of the best path in life with no bumps or hiccups. However, that’s not the case in reality. However, I can assure you that you will be good if you are a faithful and good Taoist, yet the process could be tough sometimes.
How can you spoil your child? Easy, just put them on “easy mode” all the time, give them everything they want, and pave the paths for them, so they don’t even have to get a scratch on the way. There are funny videos on TikTok comparing kids born in the 80s to kids in the 90s and even 2000s. Somehow people in the 80s are much tougher and can deal with problems themselves, while the newer generations are only crybabies and cannot handle most situations. It’s not a surprise, I was born in the 80s too, and I grew up having a hard time watching how my uncle and aunties spoiled their kids and made them grow up like greenhouse plants which could not take any hardship in life. The more “modern” people try to be with their kids, the worse it gets, especially how people say, “spanking your kids is bad,” and then they stop all the physical punishment and whacking. The spanking and scolding are tough, but they also build tougher kids.
All right, I have to say some parents overdone it and created domestic violence issues, but what good does being over-nice do to kids these days anyway? You can have problems being too violent and aggressive, but you can also have problems being too nice and soft to the kids. It’s not the method that is the problem; the parent’s decision is the problem. Using the right method at the right time is the key to success in teaching kids, as we say, tough love! Sometimes scolding and harsh words are needed, just like I do to my disciples! They will never grow up if I go soft and easy on them!
Hurdles are good for you; they make you face problems, think and search, then discover solutions, leading to knowledge and wisdom. If you never face the problems yourself, you will never know how to help others later. Imagine those kids born in the 2000s cannot even deal with a clogged toilet, and then they get married, and their kids scream for help for the same problem; what can the parents do? They can hug each other and cry for help then. Isn’t that making the parents so useless?
I have faced hurdles all my life and can only tell you that every hurdle made me stronger and better.
For example, I went to Apple to buy an iPhone, then right after that purchase, I got an SMS saying that I needed to pay $3.95 to UPS. It also has my name and address in the message, so it must be legit. I went and paid right away. However, the site felt very weird and laggy. After that payment, my alert was on all day, worrying that I got scammed. After a day, I tried to purchase something small with my credit card, and it bounced! Red flag! I called the bank right away, and turn out that the card was compromised, someone had already tried to make some $3k purchase with it, and the card immediately got locked up by the fraud protection system. Glad I called, and it was only a 5mins thing to get everything resolved, and my new card is coming soon. If you are in this scenario, you might think, why would this even happen if the gods are helping you?
Think about it this way, did I get any damage or harm from this incident? Only a little, just the hurdle and some time to wait for my new card. That’s it. If the scammer had gone the smart way and kept making like $20 purchases daily, I could have been dumb enough only to spot it after a month and then realized all the weird transactions going on, and nothing could be done to revert all that transactions by then. However, I found the problem within a day and was also saved by the fraud protection system because the scammer used a big amount instead of a small one, wasn’t it already the best thing that could happen? After this incident, I also learned to be more aware of the timing of messages. How could UPS already give you a payment to make right after the purchase on Apple’s site? The shipping label is not even created. How can there be any duty to pay? I learned and won’t be scammed again with this kind of thing. Good lesson, and minimal damage!
This incident inspired me to type this blog post as a lesson for my disciples. Once you have learned through the hurdle, your gods also learn with you, which makes your gods smarter and able to help you avoid these hurdles in the future; when we face hurdles and hardship, it’s just another way to train and teach our gods to face these problems. Now that I have faced this hurdle, I can give people a protection FU that can avoid and protect them from this kind of problem because my gods have learned it and can use the same experience to help others!
I also remembered a lot of hurdles in the lineage with bad disciples and betrayers. Every one of those incidents leads to more goodies born in the lineage, such as more teachings on virtue, knowledge, and ways to prevent these problems. The bad disciples gave us a chance to learn and get the treasures from the gods so that we could teach the other disciples better and avoid them turning bad the same way. These bad examples are necessary for the lineage to grow and mature. We got to love hurdles and see their benefit of them.
Life is full of hurdles and hardships, but with the gods around and with guidance from the Tao, you can benefit from them much more than just going through unpleasant experiences. The Tao will give you solutions to fix the problem and achieve final success; you will have to pick up the gems and learn while you walk through the process. Don’t be afraid of or hate hurdles; you should use them as an opportunity to learn and get stronger. Ask your master (me) what to do and get guidance from the Tao. Do not try to deal with hurdles alone; no Taoist fights alone! If you are not yet part of our family, ordain as a Taoist today and let your journey begin!
