Armless Man’s Chopsticks & Joyless Children
View(s):A few years back I met a very rich businessman over a coffee at his office and he was apparently a father of one of my friends. He was so humble that he offered to make a cup of coffee for me. Whilst he attempted to mix the sugar into my cup of coffee, his hands shivered and the sugar spilt on the table. He looked at me very miserably and said “Putha (meaning ‘son’ in Sinhala) I have everything but I don’t have life”. A statement that I would never ever forget in my entire life.
All that time I thought he was living a blissful life considering all the wealth he possessed, but it was only then that I realised that it was not the case, he was living in misery. He owned many businesses in the country as well as abroad. When I asked him the reason for his misery, he said the reason was his son because he was living a meaningless life, consuming alcohol and other destructive things in this world. This is the message I wanted to give the world even through one of my previous articles “Having Everything and Nothing at the Same Time”. 
There’s no point in looking at a fruitless withered tree and crying over it when you know that you had the opportunity to take good care of it. Yet, you completely turned a blind eye towards treating it. Many people are as such, therefore they shoulder a load of regrets up until their death bed. The incident that took place with my friend’s father was an eye opener for me, thus I came home quietly brooding about my two children. I shared this story with my loving wife and also, I appreciated her for how she moulds my children towards a life filled with joy and happiness. If you are awaiting for your problems and challenges to cease, then that would be the most foolish and unrealistic thought you could ever think of.
Life will never stop flinging problems at you and there will not be a single day that passes by without facing a challenge with a hurtful feeling. Amidst all this, if we fail to prioritise our challenges then one day we will collapse in the future. There are certain types of food one should consume during each stage of their life, failing which it might lead towards either malnourishment or at times even death. You should not feed rice and curry to an infant who ought to be having breast milk, likewise you should not consume breast milk whilst you are training hard to become a professional boxer. Concurrently, your children need specific types of food for their physical growth, so do their minds require food for their mental well-being, so that they could grow strong mentally. If not, they would fail miserably in life someday as life is purely a mind battle. If you fail to mould your children appropriately one day you will be drenched in a pool of tears and agony.
You must be very careful in moulding your children at these crucial times as the only words you hear are words of giving up, speeches of hatred, confrontations of anger, declarations of hopelessness which will create a lost generation who have no meaning or aim in life. There is nothing wrong in attempting to go abroad during this crisis, but make sure you never feed yourself and the minds of your children with thoughts of running away. The only way out towards a victorious life is to fight against your enemy in the battle ground. Hiding from the enemy will be a temporary solution, as life will constantly thrash challenges at you and if the only solution you see is running away or hiding, then you and your generation will never become overcomers. Even though you may go to a beautiful country such as Australia, yet life will be challenging as nobody is going to gift you anything free of charge. You cannot argue that apples are better than Bananas, because they have their own unique benefits. I have travelled across countries and I have lived in Australia and the USA, whilst I was there my desire was to come to my motherland with a good sum of money. When I was in the USA, we had to wake up at 5 o’clock in the morning to clear out the snow on the roads of the campus. Snow is indeed a beautiful sight to look at, but it is a lot of work when it has to be done continuously for months. It is also challenging to work during the summer as the temperature rises above forty (40) Celsius. The point I’m trying to get across is that it is mandatory to fight regardless of if you live in Australia or Sri Lanka. If you are an emotional and sensitive personality then living away from your parents and loved ones can be more distressing than staying at a fuel queue for twelve hours or more.
This is why it is important to mould our children to walk on the correct path so that they become fighters and not individuals who give up. We need to guide them through every big and small step so that they will train themselves to conquer their challenges rather than to let go of their challenges and allow the challenges to conquer them. News about suiciding is everywhere. It was indeed very sad to see a young girl who had committed suicide just because her lover had left her. Have you ever taught your children to fathom rejection or defeat ? Or are you insanely pushing them to experience only victory? You should teach your children to bounce back when they fall. Inspire them when they lose rather than shouting at them when they lose.
When a child loses a match, sometimes parents scold them for weeks and weeks not knowing that what they are doing is paralysing the child’s mind. Sometimes when a child does not score well at their scholarship examination, the parents become devils and completely destroy the mentality of their children, not knowing that what they are doing is similar to injecting poison into their main tank. What the parents do not realise is that whatever the outcome may be, it is certainly going to be poisonous.
Since the mind also grows in different phases just like the physical body, we as adults have to be very careful in steering them, as feeding the wrong food to the mind can lead towards creating mentally ill children. Tune your child’s heart to a rich value system where honesty and love are the two main pillars. Tuning the heart should be regarded above feeding intelligence. There are doctors who are not compassionate towards their patients, they request their patients to visit them a multiple times whereas the sickness is common and can be simply cured in one visit.
My son dreams of becoming a cardiologist and I have advised him that he must treat the underprivileged patients free of charge every time when it is possible, such as those who do not have the luxury of visiting a private hospital. A man with a lot of knowledge and a corrupted heart will one day be like an armless man with expensive chopsticks, who cannot utilise what he has to bring joy to him. This life is meant to live in joy, if you do not teach and guide your children to seek true joy, then one day, they might even forget you, as a heartless man is insensitive to love and caring.
If we guide our next generation appropriately and wisely then this country will become a blessing to the world. There is no point in crying over spilt milk. Let us be careful, smart and wise in navigating our children, if not they might explode in a very unexpected way that you would never want to witness. Many duplicate products have failed down the line as they do not get the same value and recognition as the original. Therefore, understand the originality of your child. Not every child is meant to become a doctor.
I have a wise friend who is apparently a famous cardiologist in Sri Lanka and he is supporting his son to become a chef. Unfortunately, many parents try to fulfill their happiness at the cost of their child’s happiness. Recognise what lies within your child and guide them to master in that particular area. Unless, one sad day your child will acquire what you like but not what makes your child happy. On that day you might become a father of a miserable rich man just like my friend’s father.
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