(241) Endless questions that start with 'what if?'
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By Janet Shin
When things go wrong, people usually ask questions such as: “What if I did something else? What if I didn’t do that? What if I didn’t meet him/her? Or, what if I was somewhere else?”
Is there anything we can do in order to avoid further misfortune or promote a golden opportunity? As the word “fate” implies something we can’t alter, people are rather afraid of acknowledging the destiny in one corner of their mind. Nevertheless they keep on trying one thing or another to change their fate until they grasp the truth.
I remember the 1986 Korean drama titled “Whitlow.” I found it quite impressive because of its novel scenario. There is a Korean saying “Every finger hurts if you bite,” which means that every child is dear to his parents. All the parents hope their children grow well and be happy no matter what price they have to pay.
The story begins with a maid working for the gentry. The maid and the lady of the house give birth at the same time and the maid becomes a nanny for the baby girl. When she saw that her daughter had a boil on the tip of a finger and she couldn’t take care of her, she decided to change the two girls bemoaning her position as a slave. She wanted her daughter not to follow the same lowly life.
Despite having a guilty conscience, she hoped that her daughter would live a noble life by her act of changing her destiny. As she wished, her daughter grew up to be a beautiful lady and married to a great family. The other daughter, who was actually of noble birth but grew up in the maid’s house was adopted and taken by a missionary to America because she couldn’t get any proper education. A reversal in this story was that the maid’s daughter became ill-behaved and ended up living an infelicitous life in spite of all support from the family, while the nobly-born daughter studied hard abroad and became a capable doctor.
It tells us that whatever effort we make or however we attempt to manipulate our destiny, it ultimately ends at an ascribed destination. One might find it merciless if there is no elbow room in our destiny and we are left to just follow the constrained path of our life’s script.
By means of alternative ways, people are conducting feng shui. Some still carry amulets and even exorcise, or “gut” in Korean, as superstitious practices. Others are willingly to change their faces by undergoing plastic surgery or their names in hope that it will bring good luck. We, educated according to modern science, normally criticize them because they can’t show any experimental evidences. By the way, we can’t deny them either because the other way round cannot be proved.
Most people ask this question of me both for good and ill-luck revealed by their saju reading. Going back to our subject ‘what if’, the process of finding answers is not just a way of fortune telling but knowing truths about life. It might cultivate oneself spiritually. Everybody has fortune and misfortune. This is also a process of forgiveness, because there is nothing and no one to blame once you know your own destiny as both fortune and misfortune are written there.
Does it sound absurd if we are destined to reach somewhere regardless of what we do now? After considering the depth of life, are you going to ask more ‘what if’ questions or vice versa? I hope you will find enlightenment some day.
Information: Are you interested in learning more about the ancient Chinese teaching regarding the “Four Pillars of Destiny”? For further information, visit Janet’s website at
, contact her at 010-5414-7461 or email
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The writer is the author of “Life’s Secrets.”