To be honest, many parents are already tired, exhausted, frustrated, even depressed in dealing with headstrong children. If, instead of offering constructive advise and help, others keep on piling blames on the failure of her parenting, which only helps to crush her will to do a good job of parenting.

I have committed many mistakes in parenting, regardless of my good intentions and constant efforts. I wish my children are resilient, always bounce back, remain a child in their hearts. Independent, responsible adult, yet keep the innocent child inside, after going through the vicissitues of life. not to be diminished by setbacks, obstocles, frustrations, betrayal, prejudices and discriminations, keep the curiosity of the child even when they grow up.

I just realize I have so much to say to my childen and they never have time for my long-windedness.

Yet, if it is so useful to human existence, why do we have so many disbelievers? From my own experience with religion, I have found the biggest obstable to be a true believer is my thinking and reasoning power. To truly accept God, you must suspend your reason. Suspension of reasoning and thinking ability is the prerequisite to accepting God.

Yes, you must feel the existence of God without thinking. Too much challlenging to too many people with thinking heads.

I once told my children and I hope they still remember this, “The key is to be able to open yourself, listen to your deep-seated needs, follow it naturally.” I do not want them to be fixed in any one mode of thinking or living. So easy to say, right? I have no answer yet.

The simple fact is I have told my children again and again, “When you are in a dire need for help, emotionally, spiritually or psychologically, if you believe God can help, go for it.” You can say my approach to religion is very practical. Right you are. This is how I perceive church — a refuge where human seeks companionship with one another. It fulfills our deep-seated spiritual and psychological need, deeper than our reason can reach.

For me, I find it extremely difficult to cognitively justify a belief in the existence of a super being. Nothing gives me more goose bumps than inconsistency — outwardly praying with a gathering of believers while inwardly thinking of something different from the utterance.

Too bad I forget the author of the book, but I remember the book quoted extensively Montaigne’s writing. Montaigne invited people to attack his ideas as “agreement is boring and intellectually deadening.” Montaigne would be a total alien at my workplace.

Then, again, Montaigne found few people worthy of being his opponents, because most people were not up to his intellectual level. I laugh out loud. Yes, try working here in Kansas and you would be completed isolated.

He disliked “pretentious conversationalists who parade their learning” or those people “awaiting their own turn to hold forth.” So terribly and pitifully shallow.

Here’s an interesting observation made by Montaigne. “Just as our mind is strengthen with vigorous and well-ordered minds, so it is impossible to over state how much it loses and deteriorates by the continuous commerce and contact we have with mean or ailing ones.”

According to him, the main reason conversations were unsatisfying is that people “get defensive when their views are questioned.” This is so fun. “Most people, when their arguments fail, change voice and expression, and instead of retrieving themselves betray their weaknesses and susceptibilities by an unmannerly anger.” I am not aware of any mannerly anger.

Montaigne was so interesting that I was very much eager to get hold of Michel de Montaigne’s original writings, in French. Wish me good luck!

I would like to tell him that loud noise might work at that age. I did not say a word. Remember he still kept my mouth wide open? I never forget this incident because I sincerely wish parenting could remain that easy when the children grow big.

Comparing to Jimmy Carter, LBJ was rather grandiose. He wanted to achieve an unprecedentedly large-scaled achievement — Great Society. To be fair, he did achieve tremendously and had done unprecedented good deeds domestically, such as, civil right laws, Medicaid, War on Poverty, etc.

Yet, he was more remembered for his expansion of Vietnam War to 550k strong and was forever haunted by the chanting — “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Readers will be able to appreciate the fact that this man was truely grandiose, having the capacity to generate monumental results — large-scaled victory domestically and even larger than his victory is his defeat and loss in Vietnam War. A strange phenomenon. A paradox. What went wrong in his mind? Beat me.

Sometimes, I hear one of my children making comments of other people in a rather disrespectful tone. I realize I must have set an undesirable example in this aspect, if not explicitly. To be sure, we live in the world of unprecedented diversity, which means we must be constantly aware of and respect the diverse forms of existence, passing no judgment on others, that is, if we want to be treated with due respect, too.

Well, the question is: do they really need to feel special? If the answer is yes, the questions that follow are: is the party the best way to make them feel special? What are other ways that you can make them feel special?

I think it easier to throw one big party once a year than giving them due attention everyday in their lives. For me, I try to remind my children that everyday is the day that they should feel special, with or without any party, because they are loved and appreciated each and everyday. Plus, they know their mom does not want to spend money on such child-spoiling luxury.

Thus, no birthday party was held for both of them after they reached school age. Many of my friends asked me to hold a grand party for my son upon his high school graduation. Both my son and I had too much more important things to focus on than a party.

Yet, after the boys grew up and needed sunshine to grow on his own, the mom still presents herself as the huge tree giving shade and support to her son. Or that is what she thinks she is doing. In reality, she underhandedly deprives her son of the much-needed sunshine to grow on his own and to develop into a responsible and independent social being.

We are too smart to be such a strong mom, aren’t we or should we?

As a parent, we often face the choice between pleasing the need of some people while neglecting the need of the child. The extreme case of such parent is Susan Smith of South Carolina who murdered her two children so that she could get married to another man. How stupid and how easy some parents can lose their minds.

The child’s need comes before anything else. Let Hades take care of any whining adults who are too selfish to think of anything else but themselves.

I hope the youngsters will always remember the moral lesson of the story — no pain, no gain; the level of the comfort and security that you will enjoy in your life is in direct proportion to the level of efforts you put into it. It would be too late by the time you need this security but you have not built for yourself.

Of course, the first and the second pigs can run to the brick house of the third pig. But living under other people’s roof? That’s too much compromise of our dignity as an individual human being.

Below is what I read from the paradox of time.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life… Everything else is secondary,” by Steven Job, p. 27 What does he mean by “living someone else’s life”? Whatever it may mean to you, I feel like making daily efforts so that other people can have a better life. Look at how I spend my weekend. This may be the definition of mom or should it be this way?

“All that really belongs to us is time; even he who has nothing else has that.” by Baltasar Gracian, p. 27 Don’t we know this already? Yes, then do we know how to spend our time wisely?

The downright truth that has been repeatedly revealed itself to me is this — you are asking for trouble way more than for help.

First of all, you give people the opportunity to interpret your question as your being incapable of handling your own job independently,or as being incompetent on the job, or as lacking of the necessary skill to complete your task alone. Such a nightmare! You want to avoid this booby trap as best as you can.

Secondly, not everybody is as helpful as you naively assumed when helping others does not pay. Very often, people try to prove how competent they are on the job. Helping others only takes away their time to prove how good they are. Even worse, helping you accomplish your task might dwarf the accomplishment of the helper. After all, who wants to be the ladder for others to climb?

Thirdly, you expose yourself to all kinds of criticism, innuendos, and unfriendly gossips when your question reveal your weakness to some people with ulterior motives. Don’t be this silly. Don’t throw yourself into the mouth of a lion.

Benefit, you can get answer quickly, not without cost, though.

What is wrong with me? Nothing but the reflection of my two decades of work experience in the States.

I often see people reporting adverse event like this — “cold/headache” or “CHF/pulmonary edema” or “CHF/kidney failure”  Are they two separate events or one causing the other?  In either case, we cannot report adverse event like this. Medical records are legal documents which is no place for any ambiguity like this.  Incidents like this often make me wonder what these people were thinking when they did it.  I had to spend a lot of time digging through thick records determining which is which.

Even more stupid than this is — the patient that I have spent so much time on was not my patient.   Frustration goes up to sky high when I think of so much of my precious time being wasted on someone else’s responsibility. 

When reflecting upon this piece of my work experience, what can I say to my children?  Well, avoid getting yourself down to this level in the first place.

We are facing endless trivials everyday coming from people of all sorts from everywhere, your office, on the street and at home.  We are so easily sidetracked and submerged in the seas of minor annoyance and nuisances.  Happily, reading can play the function of raising us out of this muddy sea to a more purify level.

This is the first time that I work with people of this level in my life. Most of my previous work expereinces have been with more educated population. Yesterday, 11/5/2008, an extremely upset thing happened at my office. I think it too unique to be missed. I need to record it for my children. Because this might start me to another position.

I saw a patient’s follow up was due but her data had not been collected by her CRC. I checked with the person who should get the data ready but had not. “Patient came on 9/11/2008. We can use this as her 5 yrs FU. Please let me know.” I need to update the system after her data ready. She was extremely mad with my email, thinking that I did not know what to do and pouring out many offensive words against me. Her eyes pierced at me in a very inhuman way just to emphasize her madness. I felt like being in a zoo instead of an office. I explained to her in as calm voice as possible that I was waiting for her to get the PSFS done. Since I came into this office July of 2007, 4 people left. I now see one of the reasons for their departure. If you ask me what I was thinking at that moment, “A dog can bite a human, how can a human bite back?” Sorry, this was what immediately came into my mind at that moment.

I am sure we all have unhappy moments meeting extremely unfriendly beings and all feel the need to forget them. Reading helps purge incidents like this out of my mind.