Why is Selflessness a way to Wisdom?
This book is a real story, but more than that it is also a book for academic life education purpose.

It first contains real stories from eleven suicide prevention telephone hotline volunteers of the Samaritan Befrienders Hong Kong (SBHK) who had been serving for more than 25 years. They came from all walks of life such as engineer, businessman, teacher, nurses and housewife. There were episodes of unforgettable conversation between volunteers and clients, stories of how volunteer managed the situation when a suicide attempt was ongoing at the other end of the phone.

Based on these stories, the author, who are also a long-serving volunteers of SBHK himself, combined with several academic references to explore relationships between empathy, selflessness, virtues, transcendence, wisdom and Eudaimonia (ultimate happiness) which human being should be aware of and to try to understand.

This book consists of two parts. The first part is a series of stories from eleven suicide prevention telephone hotline volunteers of the Samaritan Befrienders Hong Kong (SBHK) who had been serving for more than 25 years. They came from all walks of life such as engineer, businessman, teacher, nurses and housewife.

There were episodes of unforgettable conversation between volunteers and clients, stories of how volunteer managed the situation when a suicide attempt was ongoing at the other end of the phone. Volunteers talk about their engagement with different type of clients: depressive, suicidal, manipulative, shameful or even thankful clients. They also talked about themselves, including their childhood, some very important personal experiences and their expectations for the future. All these stories are, in fact, data for triangulation among each other to support the research on the attributes of these long-serving volunteers.

The second part is an elaboration of the reason for the longevity of service provided by the volunteers. This is a wisdom related reason which is unknown to most people. While volunteers selflessly devote their precious time to serve their clients and regularly exercise empathy, they are unconsciously practicing undeliberate and additional ‘selflessness’. This book provides a lot of literatures (with academic references) advocating the importance of selflessness for human development. There are relationships between empathy, selflessness, virtues, transcendence, wisdom and Eudaimonia (ultimate happiness) which human being should be aware of and to try to understand. This book allows interested people to trace along the literature references provided and ultimately pursue happiness. The author believes that people understand all these insights would know how to carry on their lives in a fruitful and developmental manor, regardless of their age.