Last weekend, when I was at Barnes & Noble’s in Town center, I met an acquaintance of mine. I know someone from her work place went to our clinic. So I asked her about this patient. From there, she started talking about the importance of enjoying oneself while we can. She talked as if it was all futile to try our best in life. ”What’s the use of working so hard without enjoying yourself?” she asked. “What do you get for all your hard work? Nothing.”

Sound rather discouraging, right? As if all your efforts were for nothing. On the way back home, I shared this view with my daughter. I told her “Even if our future is uncertain and there is no guarantee that we can reach our goal, whatever that may be, still we need to make efforts and need to try our best. Because that’s the only sure way to get closer to our goal and to make the most out of our life. That should also make you happy.”

For both of my children, if they don’t try, they will never know if they can make it or not. Only by trying their best can they have the hope of accomplishing something. Other than reaching your set goal, you get excitement and an enriched experience for working hard. After all, life is a process and an experience. You want your experience to be as rich as you can possibly make.

Of course, there is a risk in venturing out, like if you quit your well-paid job and start your own company, the risk is your own company might not succeed as you expected and you might not be able to find a good job as the one you gave up. Still, it’s better to take the risk while you are young, even if you could fail. So be it.

On 1/30, a friend of mine sent me a long piece on healthy living. This is part of it. The rough translation is like this.

While the past is gone forever, the future is as unknown as mirage in the sky. The present moment is all we have. Treasure what you have and enjoy each day, which is the happiest and the most important of all.

On 1/9, the day before I went to KC Star, I went through postings here, thinking I could better organize them and then archive the old ones. As I read some of them, the contents seem so familiar, as if I wrote them a few days ago. But when I looked at posting date, I was rather shocked to find them coming out either three or two years ago.

My mind was instantly filled with memories of sitting in HyVee grocery store, reading magazines, waiting for my daughter’s art lessons or chatting with some friends while my daughter was skating.

I remember vividly when I was in elementary school, I avoided touching old notebooks for fear of the memories associated with these old stuffs. For some reason, starting from very young age, I was keenly aware of the fact that the past would never be back.

Oh well, I still cannot believe we are already in year 2012. It is rather sad to realize that pretty soon the 2010 and 2011 postings will join those before them and become part of the historical past.

“Time and tide wait for no man” — the warning rings in my ear, almost automatically. Therefore, value today, enjoy every minute of what we have, cram more into our limited time as if we can stretch it longer.

Yesterday, during lunch break, I went to get prescription for my daughter. The weather felt like summer. For some reason, the driving reminded me of so many summer lunchtime when my children went to summer school and I fetched them back at this time of the day. The feeling and the experience that I found myself in are so familiar that it makes me feel nostalgic.

For sometimes, while I was driving, my mind went back to those summer drives when my son was having lunch on the way back home because he was very hungry after five hours class. I seemed to relive those moments when I was in a familiar situation. It quietly dawns on me that we actually live in both present and past time via our memories whenever we hit the familiar scene or experience. This must be the experience of déjà vu.

Last summer might be the last one that I was needed for this task, as my daughter plans for some other activities for this summer.

When I shared with my friend my thought on issue touched on 12/16/2009, my friend suggested that very often we do good thing without enough passion. Exactly so. When I told my children to live a life that’s worth living, find your passion and go for it with full speed, we ourselves have not provided a good model for them in this aspect.

Look at our own lives, do we exemplify the kind of life that we expect our children to live? No. I am not content with my current position, neither are many people that I know of. Just look at our New Year Resolutions at the end of each year. At best, my life consists of many dreams, goals, tons of efforts to advance and to overcome any adversities, and then is often followed by a series of compromise and another compromise.

All we can say is we try our best and won’t suffer from regret and guilt when we are old and fragile.

P.S. I talked to a former college classmate last weekend and learned about more of our classmates. The seven of us were roommates for four years. We were young and immensely stupid, yet happy for no reason at all, leaving endless laughter beyond ourselves even after so many years.

This is an email that I wrote to a friend of mine on 10/8/2009.
“What you describe in your email — ‘the fact that I have full control of the way things go around here, (including my pace, and happiness) which has made my life much less complicated and stressful!’ – reminds me of a definition of happiness that I learned back in graduate school. That is, happiness means the maximum of control over one’s life. The more control you have over your life, the happier you are.

Based on this definition, I cannot say I am as happy as I want to be when I would rather do something else but I do not have other choice or I would rather spend my time on what I enjoy, which is not what I am doing right now. But It is up to me to reconcile, compromise and make life easy for myself. It is up to me to make sense of and give meaning to my daily experience. If I cannot control factors outside me, I can at least control the way I think, which holds the key to my happiness.

If anything, you might find me often talk on a higher level. That is because I think a lot, but I make this clear to myself that I am responsible for making myself happy. If I am not, I don’t blame anyone else but myself. This may be called taking control of our lives, thought and action.

I have talked too much for this cloudy day and hope our minds are bright and sunny, regardless of clouds outside.”

Below was sent to me by a friend. Too beautifully written to keep it to myself.

Ready or not, someday it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten,
will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.
So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won’t matter where you came from,
or on what side of the tracks you lived, at the end.

It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave.

What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is not your competence, but your character.

What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.
What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.

What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what

Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident.
It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
While you meet something beautiful,
the first thing you should do is to share it with your friends anywhere.
So that these beautiful things will be able to spread out literally around the world.

Recently when the weather is cooperative, my daughter and I take a walk in our neighborhood in the evening, chatting and laughing with me dragging my feet trying to catch her up.

Yesterday while walking outside in the evening, I talked to her something happened during the day.

In the morning I introduced the word “humble” to the 10-year-old nephew. I emphasized the benefit of being humble and unassuming in interactions with people, specifically in making friends at school. He argued with me, saying being proud and assertive helps you boost up your self-confidence. He knew that I was referring to his “kuang” (an exaggerated expression of assertiveness and arrogance). He suddenly became very defensive of his “kuang.”

One example of his “kuang,” he practically looks down upon everybody in my house because he believes he knows a lot more than all of us. Lately, he gave up a little bit, saying “Well, I must admit the only thing you are better than me is your English, but once my English is good, you are not better any more.” I appreciate his frankness and bold thinking.

I calmed him down, saying, “It is okay whatever, if you think kuang is good and humble is bad. I am not enforcing my view on you. I am only sharing it with you. You can turn a deaf ear if you think it nonsense.”

Then I asked him, “Do you like people who are boasting, arrogant or pretentious, going about like a VIP when they are just a small potatos? Do you think it easy to make friends with these kind of people?” He admitted he didn’t like it. He learned that he would be ignored by others and be without any friends if he insisted on being “kuang.” Still, he thinks being humble is not a virtue. I told him it was good that he had his own opinion and I respected his way of thinking. We ended the conversation happily for both of us.

Later I was asked if the 10-year-old was a kind of burden to me. I told my daughter that I was least disturbed by things like that.

“There are not many things that are really important in our lives. This has never been one of them.” I told her of three things that I cared most at this point of my life. Yes, only three things. When you think it through, we really have only a few important things in life. The difficult task is to leave out of our minds anything that is not important, resulting in a lot simpler life. Life is really not that complicated if we don’t mess it up like one of our ex-presidents with one of his interns. I know I have been unkind in mentioning those ex-ex.

Indeed, nobody likes to be pointed out his/her mistakes or weakness.  A child who specially cares about face-saving specially dislikes criticism, especially after the child has been adored 99% of times in the past.  Yet, I find it hard to extend compliments when I see much room for improvement, that is, truth must be told without diluting it with praise.

Yestoday I gave my nephew a task — to make a list of his strength and the areas where he thinks he needs to improve.  He asked me, “Do you want me to write about my weaknesses?” I knew he was over-sensitive over the word weaknesses so I don’t want him to get defensive upon this word.  I made my point clear to him.  “I never say the word weakness. I think we all need to improve ourvelves, including me. Don’t you think so?  This is what I want you to write, if you want to be a better person.”  “What do you mean, auntie?  Do you mean I am not a better person now?” he asked.

“You know what kind of person you are.  I just want you to get better than you are now. You can write it if that’s what you want.  It is up to you.  Your sister also must write one.”  Finally he agreed to work on this task.  I was hoping of finding a way for him to know himself instead of being always told of this.

He completed the task in no time. At first he covered it up and would not let me read it. I said, “Ok, you can keep it to yourself. I will just read your sister’s.” Then he offered to let me read. Next he kept pressing me to judge whose writing is better.  I would be too naive to fall for it. “They are different, no good or bad,” I told him.

It is not my intention to challenge the validity of their writings. They are true as long as they believe so. As for me, they serve as a historical reference for their own evaluation at this point of their lives.  If I remember it, I will ask him to make another one in one year. Very interesting indeed!