WHY I HATE MY LIFE?

In his 35 years of research, Dr. Salvatore Maddi of The Hardiness Institute has discovered that what predicts how well we will do in life, our relationships, careers, and so on is NOT how much money we have or even how many struggles we face. It’s a matter of how hardy or emotionally resilient we are. We can all learn to become more resilient. We can implement tools that help shape how we see and experience the world around us. We can uncover what’s at the root of our unhappiness and create a life that has personal meaning to us, a life that reflects our unique goals and desires.

They were bothering me, so finally I looked over at one of the students, a 

good-looking woman (I used to think all Christians were ugly); and I leaned back in my chair (I didn't want the others to think I was interested) and I said, "Tell me, what changed your lives? Why are your lives so different from the others on campus?"

The point of differentiation isn’t to blame parents for all our problems but rather to help explain the elements that lay the foundation for the self-limiting or self-destructive behavior we engage in that leads to our unhappiness. Naturally, no parent is perfect. We are all human and full of flaws. Parents may have critical attitudes toward themselves that extend to their children. As people grow up, they tend to incorporate these attitudes and engage in a process of self-parenting. They may start to imitate their parents’ less favorable traits, take on hurtful attitudes toward themselves or retaliate against these parental influences. All of these actions are a reaction to our upbringing and don’t necessarily reflect our true unique identity and point of view.

That young woman must have had a lot of conviction. She looked me straight in the eye and said two words I never thought I'd hear as part of a solution in a university: "Jesus Christ."

I said, "Oh, for God's sake, don't give me that garbage. I'm fed up with religion. I'm fed up with the church. I'm fed up with the Bible. Don't give me that garbage about religion."

She shot back, "Hey, I didn't say religion, I said Jesus Christ." She pointed out something I'd never known before: Christianity is not a religion. Religion is when human beings try to work their way to God through good works; Christianity is God coming to men and women through Jesus Christ to offer a relationship with himself.

There are probably more people in universities with misconceptions about Christianity than anywhere else in the world. Some time ago I met a teaching assistant who remarked in a graduate seminar that "anyone who walks into a church becomes a Christian." I replied, "Does walking into a garage make you a car?" I was told that a Christian is somebody who genuinely believes in Christ.

As I considered Christianity, my new friends challenged me intellectually to examine Jesus' life. I found out that Buddha, Mohammed and Confucius never claimed to be God, but Jesus did. My friends asked me to look over the evidence for Jesus' deity. They were convinced that Jesus was God in human form who died on the cross for the sins of mankind, that he was buried, that he arose three days later, and that he could change a person's life today.

I thought this was a farce. In fact, I thought most Christians were walking idiots. I'd met some. I used to wait for a Christian to speak up in the classroom so I could tear him or her up one side and down the other, and beat the professor to the punch. I imagined that if a Christian had a brain cell it would die of loneliness. I didn't know any better.

But these people challenged me over and over. Finally, I accepted their challenge. I did it out of pride to refute them, thinking there were no facts. I assumed there wasn't any evidence a person could evaluate.

There's another area of which I'm not proud. But I mention it because a lot of people need to have the same change in their lives, and I found the source of change: a relationship with Jesus Christ. That area is hatred. I had a lot of hatred in my life. It wasn't something outwardly manifested, but there was a kind of inward grinding. I was ticked off with people, with things, with issues.

But I hated one man more than anyone else in the world: my father. I hated his guts. To me he was the town alcoholic. Everybody knew my dad was a drunk. My friends would make jokes about my father staggering around downtown. They didn't think it bothered me. I was like other people -- laughing on the outside. But let me tell you, I was crying on the inside. There were times I'd go out in the barn and see my mother beaten so badly she couldn't get up, lying in the manure behind the cows. When we had friends over, I would take my father out, tie him up in the barn, and park the car around the silo. We would tell our friends he'd had to go somewhere. I don't think anyone could have hated anyone more than I hated my father.

After I made that decision for Christ, he entered my life and his love was so strong that he took the hatred and turned it upside down. I was able to look my father squarely in the eyes and say, "Dad, I love you." And I really meant it. After some of the things I'd done, that shook him up.