Autobiography
A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith
Coda: My Swan Song
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here.Writing my autobiography has been a long journey–it started in 2012 and completed in 2019. It was also a very...
Epilogue (Autobiography, Ch. 29)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. So much injustice, so much pain—yet what a wonderful life I’ve had! Some people have asked me,...
Why and How I Developed the Positive Psychology of Suffering (Autobiography, Ch. 28)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here.The above collage of influential positive psychologists is from the Positive Psychology Program. My initial...
Living with Cancer, Suffering, and Death: A Case for PP 2.0 (Autobiography, Ch. 27)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. It is only fitting to end my autobiography with a chapter on living with cancer, suffering, and death—the...
Once a Teacher, Always a Teacher (Autobiography, Ch. 26)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here.When I was just a few years old, I already wanted very much to be like Confucius. I still do not fully...
How I Cracked Nature’s Code for Positive Mental Health and Why I Became a Meaning Therapist (Autobiography, Ch. 25)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. This chapter was originally published as Wong, P. T. P. (2019, July 6). How I cracked nature’s code for...
The Untold Story of the INPM (Autobiography, Ch. 24)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. “Don’t try to get in where you are excluded; go to where you are wanted. If nobody wants you,...
My Losing Battle Against Publication Bias (Autobiography, Ch. 23)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here.It has felt like death by a thousand cuts, but I have survived the brutal and biased peer review process....
Why I Love Taiwan: My Academic Home (Autobiography, Ch. 22)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. This was my fourth and longest lecture tour in Taiwan. I ask myself: Why am I so attracted to...
Reflections on My Psychology Career: Where I Came From, and Where I Am Going (Autobiography, Ch. 21)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. “I suffer, therefore, I rejoice.” This paradoxical statement sums up my entire academic career in...
My Last Words for the Church (Autobiography, Ch. 20)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here.Most likely, I have attended and served more churches than any of my readers because I have resided in many...
The Joy and Suffering of Christian Ministry (Autobiography, Ch. 19)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here.As Watchman Nee (2009) has said, “I do not consecrate myself to be a missionary or a preacher. I consecrate...
Baptism by Fire: The Untold Story of the Toronto Chinese Gospel Church (Autobiography, Ch. 18)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. This is the darkest chapter of my life, but it is also the most significant milestone in my spiritual...
My Conversion: The Beginning of a New Adventure (Autobiography, Ch. 17)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. In the past, it was always difficult for me to share my conversion without being overwhelmed by...
The Many Faces of Poverty (Autobiography, Ch. 16)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. The Many Faces of Poverty One does not really understand poverty unless one has lived through it; it is a...
Pui Ching and Life’s Tough Lessons (Autobiography, Ch. 15)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. Pui Ching & Life’s Tough Lessons After graduation from St. Stephen’s as the top student in my class, I...
A Year of Awakenings (Autobiography, Ch. 14)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. A good education is transformative. I am so grateful that Father arranged for us siblings to spend one year...
Hong Kong: A Haven for Chinese Refugees (Autobiography, Ch. 13)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here.My childhood was in China, but I became an adult in Hong Kong. Perhaps the ordeal of escaping from China as a...
Farewell, China (Autobiography, Ch. 12)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. We are on a cruise ship celebrating my 80th birthday. The smell and the view of the ocean floods...
The Story to Live By (Autobiography, Ch. 11)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here.On a scale of one to 10, I will rate my life seven on happiness but 10 on meaningfulness. My life story is...
Looking Backwards and Looking Forwards (Autobiography, Ch. 10)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. I cannot believe that I first started working on my autobiography way back in 2008 at the urging of Mr....
My Brilliant Younger Brothers: Constant, Giles, Joshua, Oscar (Autobiography, Ch. 9)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. All my younger brothers have fared much better than my older siblings. They have surprised me...
Helen Wong Chao (趙王德珍): A Modern Mulan Who Saved Her Family (Autobiography, Ch. 8)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. What do you expect from a girl growing up with seven boys? A tomboy. Helen was...
Benedict C. H. Wong (王敬羲): A Heroic Struggle for Existential Significance (Autobiography, Ch. 7)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. This evening is bleak and rainy, one that brings back many memories of my days in...
David C. H. Wong (王企祥): An Epitome of True Grit (Autobiography, Ch. 6)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. On one afternoon several years ago, when I was alone in my home study thinking about my brother...
My Mother: An Epitome of Self-Transcendence (Autobiography, Ch. 5)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. Mother died in 1999, but I have never shed any tears over her death. Even at her funeral, I felt...
My Father: The Unsinkable C. Y. Wong (Autobiography, Ch. 4)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. I dare say that very few people have lived as fully, passionately, and productively as my...
The Good and Bad of My Family of Origin (Autobiography, Ch. 3)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. My life can be best understood from the intersection of three larger stories: The larger drama...
My Country, My People, My Identity (Autobiography, Ch. 2 )
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here.In order to make sense of who I am and what drives me, I need to return to my roots—to go back to the time...
Is There Life after 80? (Autobiography, Ch. 1)
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong’s autobiography, A Lifelong Search for Meaning: Lessons on Virtue, Grit, and Faith, is published in weekly installments. Stay updated here. The final time I visited my father in Hong Kong, he was in his 80s. He said to me, with downcast...