Why me?

"Why me?” my friend asked with tears in his eyes.

“What happened?”

“My dad passed away, dearest pet dog died and my sister lies paralysed in hospital. All in one year. Why me?”

I did not know what to answer, but had to say something.

“This ‘why me’ question is asked by 6 billion plus people on earth at least at some stage in their lives. Just yesterday, a friend told me about his dad’s expensive heart surgery and asked ‘why us?’ Accept the situation with courage,” I suggested.

“Advising is easy but to face it is different,” he reacted.

I narrated a story that I read in a magazine. A drunken father battered his wife in front of his three children and killed her, smashing her head against a wall. He landed in jail and the kids did not know where to look for the next meal. “Are we in a worse situation than them?”

Instead of pacifying him, my story annoyed him.

“Why do you compare people’s situations? You are lucky your life is smooth.”

I did not take the bait and unfurl my sob story. As they say, the ship is safe at the harbor but is not meant to be that way. It is supposed to sail and face all kinds of weather challenges. A soldier with wound marks on his face and yet smiling shines. Right?

“What will you do if you were me?” he threw the final question.

“I will look at the mirror and ask myself how should I look – a defeated face or the Buddha serenity.”

“Boss, you overact,” he said turning the discussion into a war.

I could not smile. I realized I am another one in the six billion. I parted without a smile then.

Now at home, when I write this, I understand. The war is all about inner peace. Neither he nor anyone can snatch it away from me. Here I go: Say cheese.