What difference?

Let's imagine someone who throws their life away to save one person. If they save two people instead, will their life change much? Their life will likely remain similar. To be precise, it will just get busier. Saving two people requires more resources than saving one. Then, if we consider increasing that number from two to three, does it necessarily enrich the life of the helper? Not necessarily. It could simply mean being busier, facing more hardship, and bearing a heavier burden. But what about the lives of those who received the help? They will change. They will change profoundly.

Consider this example. Imagine someone who needs cancer surgery. They need 20 million won to cover the costs, but they have no money, and without help, they will die. If someone helps them, it is as if they have been granted a new life. On the other hand, for someone who treats 20 million won as if it were 2,000 won, this is not a significant burden. For a person with hundreds of billions, it is merely the equivalent of sharing a small portion of their interest income. They could live without that 20 million won, yet they have saved a person's life.

In other words, from a selfish perspective, providing help may be a loss, but from the other side, it is an act of grace that grants someone their life. While the difference between 1,000 and 1,001 may seem numerically insignificant, the impact on the one person who receives that grace is immeasurably vast.

What if we were to save an entire nation? If a country has collapsed, unless it is restored, the absolute majority of its people—and their future generations—are condemned to live horrific lives. This moves beyond the concept of saving a single person; it becomes the concept of saving all the generations that follow. Restoring a nation devastated by civil war. Liberating those living under dictatorship and oppression. This is not a mathematical calculation of saving one individual. It is the act of saving the countless lives that will emerge from them, and simultaneously, it is the way to prevent the tree of evil from flourishing further. If you do not wish for your sons and daughters to live in pain, and if you desire a future of abundance and peace, then someone must fight the battle that requires shedding blood to pull out the roots of evil. Someone must step forward to do the work that no one else volunteers for. While everyone enjoys the abundance of the common, someone must refuse that comfort, cut away their own share, and go to quench the thirst of the parched. If we cannot do this, this world will never be beautiful, no matter how filled with abundance it may be. I have no intention of living in such a world. To live in the world I desire, I forsake my own life.