Paradox and Inspiration 134: Are Your Children Demanding Teachers Earn Respect?

Many parents, including my other half have spoken about how our new generation of youngsters have to be nurtured differently, how they should be generously showered with praises so as they would not grow up with a defeatist attitude and warped self-esteem, and how we should treat them as equals when relating to them, talk to them as if they are adults and we are all friends, and that we should be aware that they are a different generation that demand their teachers and seniors to earn their respect and adoration by first proving their credibility and worth.

Yes, I agree that sometimes we as Asian parents do not listen enough to our children, allowing them to express their views, showing appreciation of their opinions despite of our own negative experience we have with our own parents when we were young. But I am afraid that in our endeavour to perform better than the previous generation, we might have unconsciously thrown ourselves to the other extreme when raising our children. As much as we desire our children to grow up as highly self-assured, confident individuals, ask of ourselves if we have also at the same time allowed them to become too self-opinionated, ego-centric, and even too critical and arrogant in the way they perceive others. Are we indirectly encouraging them to be too quick in judging others from the start and demanding their authorities and teachers to first prove their worth before receiving any positive treatment? Are we really teaching our children the right thing? Why should we condone such behaviours and inclinations, just because they belong to a newer, more rebellious generation?

I want my children to be confident and articulate, but I also want to accentuate in them a positive, teachable spirit. As parents, we were called to be the parents of our children and not their friends. They must learn about the institution of authorities in their life and in this society, an awareness of others, and due polite respect for the authorities, the elderly, their seniors, teachers, bosses and parents, who all should be given the benefit of the doubt for the positions they are in. Yes, children should not be expected to blindly and willingly accept any kind of ill treatment and wrong teachings, but what I mean is start with the positive attitude, relate to teachers from the onset with a respectful attitude, recognising they have been given the responsibility to rule over them, rather than adopting a challenging, critical, nonchalant or even hostile disposition right from the beginning. How about unreasonable and incapable educators? Yes, they do exist unfortunately, but they will just have to worry for themselves as their standing and honour amongst their students, peers, and bosses will surely dissipate over time. When we over-indulge our children and bail them out too early from difficult situations, they cannot experience the hard truths about life for themselves and would never learn that the world just doesn't revolve around them.

Paradox and Inspiration 133: Wander

“Not all those who wander are lost.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

Paradox and Inspiration 132: Questions We Never Were Curious Enough to Ask

A story was told of a housewife who was preparing dinner when her inquistive daughter popped her a question. "Mum, why do you always have to cut the ham into half before putting it into the oven to grill?" The housewife paused for a moment and replied, "Hmmm....well darling, I'm not sure why but I learned to do this from your grandma since I was a little girl like you."

That very weekend, as part of her routine visit, the housewife dropped by at her mum's place and remembered to ask her daughter's question. And she was stumped as her mum as-a-matter-of-factly said, "Oh, I had to cut it into halves because I never had a plate big enough for the whole ham."

Paradox and Inspiration 131: Last Minute Interventions

Two weeks ago, I had a large fibroid in my uterus removed by laparoscopy. Much to my relief, I am now up and about.

In the past 9 years, open surgery was the only option given to me by my gynaecologist due to the fibroid size – scanned as 8cm in diameter. Yet, a second opinion from another gynaecologist gave me only 50% chance of doing a laparoscopy provided I took a special medicine for some time to shrink the fibroids beforehand. As much as I resented the idea of a 5 to 6 weeks recovery from an open surgery and putting up with the pain, the uncertainty of a successful keyhole surgery led me to my eventual choice – open surgery.

Just two weeks before the scheduled open surgery, my sister unexpectedly passed me the contact of an expert in minimally invasion surgery. However, after having my appointment date messed up by the counter staff and making a wasted trip, and reading to greater length that only small fibroids can be removed by laparoscopy on the internet, I talked myself out of the idea of seeking further advice. Having reached the end of my tether and feeling completely resigned to an open surgery, I decided to forget about the new appointment date.

Guided by some bizarre coincidence, I ended up at the dentist in the morning of the appointed day and then having the dentist somehow led to share with me that her friend’s fibroid which was as big as 10cm was removed by keyhole surgery. That was nothing close to what I had been drummed into believing all the time! Never did I know that large fibroids could be removed that way! Bowled over by the hope of avoiding the big surgery came, I showed up for the appointment that afternoon, without any prior planning. Unbelievably as it turned out, the doctor confidently said the surgery could be done for the 8cm fibroid and I immediately scheduled for it to happen the following week.

Many amazing things occurred, but nothing topped being told by the doctor after the surgery that the fibroid turned out to be joined with another big fibroid and its size was more than double - 19cm by 18cm!

Thank God for all the last minute interventions!

Paradox & Inspiration 130: What is Happiness?

A survey conducted by the National University of Singapore Business School in 2006 polled more than 1,000 people, aged 20 to 69 concluded the following:

"...people who have a university or postgraduate qualification and earn $5,000 or more a month are the happiest...But they are also dissatisfied with their achievements and enjoy life the least, compared with those who are less well-off...it is the Singaporeans earning less than $2,000 a month who enjoy life the most"

The Straits Times, 10 Jan 2010

So, this study seems to suggest happiness is not about enjoying life?

Paradox & Inspiration 129: Laze and Be Merry

In her Straits Times article "Have a lazy new year", a lady columnist criticised that purposeful and noble new year resolutions were stifling and questioned if there was more to life than bettering ourselves. Resolved not to undertake any industrious endeavours for the new year, she claimed, "All I want to do with time is to waste it." She advised us to think twice before signing up for another self-improvement class, and instead of getting up for morning exercise, have a luxurious sleep-in until noon...and announced she would be spending lots of time in the virtual world by joining her husband who was having loads of fun acquiring girlfriends in computer games.

When has staying productive and busy become so uncool? And, do people actually need to make resolutions just to become lazy?

Paradox & Inspiration 128: Life Isn't...

Life is not about how far you run,
how high you climb,
but it is about...
how fast you bounce.

Paradox and Inspiration 127: Time Waits for No Man

Behold, without the world stopping for even a split second to send off 2009, the rushing tides of 2010 have already crept in for more than a week! It all seems too uneventful, the normalcy of the fact that "2009 is gone forever!" scares me; surely this has to be more dramatised than this… we can never have 2009 back!

Be awaken to the jolting fact time never stops, steer the rudder and work on my to-do-list that is growing by the day. Make 2010 count please.

Paradox and Inspiration 126: Never get into the good books of the judges if you want to be Singapore Idol

In the Life Section of 2 Jan 2010 Straits Times, Jeremy Au shared his interesting analysis of why Sylvia Ratonel, who was deemed as the hot favourite, lost the Singapore Idol title to Sezair Sezal. One of the determining factor according to him had to do with how much the judges like the contestant. When the judges so frequently made it so obvious that Sylvia Rationel should emerge as the winner, it was like giving her "the kiss of death". Why? Singapore voters hated the judges and would do anything to crush the judges' hope, according to Jeremy Au.