Saturday, March 25, 2006
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Today, my dad told me:
"If you didn't know how something should be done, and you make a mistake, that is ignorace. If you know how something should be done, and you don't do it, that is failure."
After that, he turn to me and said, "Fangying, you are a failure because you know you should study but you did not; otherwise, how do you explain the two E8s in your progress report?"
Dad, you rock my world.
Today was Meet-The-Parents session, and as a prologue to the whole event the school invited two people to talk about parenting.
I guess parents of teenagers are the wrong target audience. They've been doing this for fifteen years; no one has the right to lecture them what they should and shouldn't teach their children.
They're making it sound like it's the parents' responsibility if the child doesn't do well in school. They're making it sound like there is only one way to raise your child; in fact, they only elaborated on how to raise a son and overlooked the daughters section. Besides, whichever way you do it, boys and girls don't need seperate methods.
If the child did something wrong because the parents didn't tell them, it's the parents' fault. But if the child refused to listen to his folks and gets into trouble, that's not the parents' fault, though parents are ultimately the ones who feel the most pain.
My uncle passed away last Friday, and no one's heart broke into more pieces than my grandmother's. Not that everybody else are hard-hearted; I must note that my aunt, his wife, is such a strong woman. So many uncertainties lie ahead of her and her two young sons, aged 11 and 8. Yet she did not show any sign of despair, only silent tears on the day my uncle's body was cremated.
In this whole lifetime we are always at war. Your wants and your shoulds are always trapped in a battle, fighting till the day you die. You should study but you want to play. You should go to school but you want to stay at home. You should eat your vegetables but you want to eat kong ba pau. You should work but you want to sleep. You should live but you want to die. You should die but you want to live.
All so much for a Hundred Years' War, fought between your Shoulds and your Wants. Let your wants take over all your shoulds, you succumb to your worst fears by failing. Let your shoulds override all your wants, you become so high-strung you don't know what life is made of.
The war rages on within me, with no ultimate winner or loser.
Whichever wins, one thing's for sure - I don't want to die a failure.
[fangying] [2:54 PM]
