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This May has truly been most “educational” for me. My sister and I learned to throw my dad his very first surprise party. Everything had been arranged but I was surprised how my younger sister was able to secretly invite all of our family and my dad’s closest friends—all 170 of them. Everyone did their part. I was in charge of the program. My daughter made the video. My son performed his violin. As I said before the evening ended, “My dad is not perfect but, as we can see from tonight, he is very much appreciated.”
I came back from a training overseas just recently. We had a workshop on actually composing an Instagram post. We had to do the photography, the caption and the hashtags. Mind you, most of us are not in our 20s, so it wasn’t as easy as it sounds. The French speaker ranked us No. 3 out of six groups.
All this made me recall a movie I saw on the plane, Learning to Drive, starring Ben Kingsley, who played a Sikh driving instructor to a Manhattan writer (Patricia Clarkson). Each had troubles but in the end, they both pushed each other to find courage. Both had that second chance.
What stuck to me was this phrase Kingsley’s driving instructor said on why, despite him being a learned man, he chose to be a driving instructor: “This is how I know who I am.”
I have written about the importance of having meaning and passion in our lives. I’m here to augment this thought by saying that meaning can also—and quite often—change. It can evolve into a more complicated essence, or even become very simple. Whatever it is, I see this transition as a pivotal springboard that we might find scary just as the lever is being pulled back to throw us into the air of newness. As we land back into reality, we might find ourselves filled with either gratitude or anger for all that has occurred.
Why is this important to parenthood? I realize no matter how old our kids are, they will always look at our lives as a reference point. It is easier for our kids to follow in our footsteps and improve on them, rather than totally go off-tangent. As I think of becoming a reference for my children, learning to grow old with gratitude and peace becomes a compelling task.
In my youth, meaning was academic achievements and relationships. In my teens, it was to escape all that was expected of me. In my 20s, it was about my becoming a wife. This was when disappointment came and my mind-set was rattled to change. Self-issues surfaced, external circumstances didn’t help, but somehow I managed to adapt. That was when I found more meaning in knowledge and my favorite comforting phrase: “Work in progress.”
In my 30s, meaning was devotion to my family and my craft. After 10 years of toil since my 20s, my world fell apart, but surprisingly I discovered my “hidden meaning.” I always thought my craft was being good in business. It was from this catapult that I saw my true love in teaching, art and transcendence.
Now, as I enter my 40s, I have rebuilt my life. I managed to fast-forward my passions. Since my 20s, I would always say I will retire by 50, so I can create art and be a teacher.
Today I’m able to realize this, because I subliminally realized that my wants were important. I realized I have always put my life on hold for everyone else’s good. Life was kind and brought me closer to my real wants. Today my so-called midlife “crisis” has turned out to be a gratifying experience. I continue to devote my life to my family but now there is ample room for my “self”. My family has also extended to beyond blood. I believe I have more room to make a difference through my love of teaching.
I believe we as parents need to undergo our own catharsis. No matter how simple or how complicated the journey, we need to trace it to find all forms of meaning in it—from what is readily apparent to their subliminal significance. Why? Because inner peace is possible today.
How? Below are some tips that I feel might be helpful:
- Create your own timeline of key milestones, both good and bad.
- Use a red pen to encircle happy moments and purple for the sad ones.
- At the bottom of each red circle, write down what in that moment made you happy and how you would have liked to share it.
- At the bottom of each purple circle, write down who hurt you and forgive them; then write how you turned this situation to now see it as a good thing.
- Last and most important for me: Acknowledge the Greater Power. For regardless how much we plan or toil, nature is at work. We can plan work, but we don’t control the outcomes.
So, it’s really like learning to drive. In the beginning, we are fearful and prefer to stay neutral. We try each gear and get our comfort level in either 3, 4 or 5. But even when we reach 5, we still have to go back to one. You can choose to see the process as frustrating or instead say, “I bear the freedom to go anywhere and learn from another journey.”
I always choose the latter because…“this is how I know who I am.”