Warning: This is going to be long.
In a world of broken families and self-fulfillment, why should we fight for the institution of family?
It probably wasn’t long ago when you heard someone say, family is where we find the richest of joys and the heaviest of burdens. Perhaps you recall a fleeting thought such as, my family members are so annoying, I can’t wait to pick my own family members, and everything will be perfect. Try as we may we can never escape the imperfections of family, and some struggle to find that “richest of joys” others claim to experience with their family.
Let me be slightly distracted. I was watching Now Is Good on the flight home, about a teenage girl who is suffering from leukemia, is into her 4th year with the condition, and who hasn’t got much time left. A rebellious teenage girl who doesn’t have much of life left has the perfect excuse to run off and experience life as she would like to define it – and she does, by coming up with a list of things she wanted to do before she dies. Here’s a snapshot of what made it to The List: Having sex, taking drugs, breaking the law. No she isn’t a wild one, if anything she has the most mellow disposition despite her wild desires. I recall a scene where she turns around and says to her parents how she is tired of her father’s desperate attempts to control and her mother’s absence, where she states matter-of-factly: “you are both wasting my time” and walks away alone. Her runaways alone stresses her father out, and there came a point where her father sits in the middle of her trashed bedroom, sees The List, and said crying, “I could have helped you with your List, I don’t want you to go”. Indeed, for the father, her dedicated care giver, he can’t let her go when he has invested so much time and energy into her. Maybe with the list she was seeking thrill, but when she later walks into the life of the neighbour boy, she finds that she was really looking for acceptance, encouragement, an unimposing caring presence, one who probes her reasons for the things she does, one who asks, what would you like me to do? And she tries to be just that to her little brother, when she brings her brother out saying “It’s your day, we will do whatever you want”, and brings her brother to indoor sky-diving when he said he wants to fly. She eventually finds her thrills of life, unexpected as they come, with her own try at indoor sky-diving, running into frigid waters of the English beaches, seeing the white cliffs of the Dorset coast, sitting high up in a tree in the middle of quiet woods: all times shared with people she loves. In one simple moving scene, she watches her brother play in the garden, as she thinks about who and what she is leaving behind. Maybe I could use all that as an example.
The Heaviest of burdens
There are those who, based on what they see/hear through various mediums, understand that you are supposed to help your family, it is your duty, your responsibility, which maybe you would not have picked up (that much of?) if given a choice (instruction). There are those who love their family enough to want to do anything, even denying themselves, to help the ones they love, whether or not they feel that particular family member has been instrumental in their life or not (conviction). It is not difficult to see which scenario causes one to find the family burdensome and leads to burn out. Maybe it could be affected by how others view what you do – “It is Dad’s duty to do this for me” vs “Thanks Dad for finding time to do this for me”. But regardless of how others view what you do, I think ultimately it’s about how you rank yourself with respect to your family in the importance scale. One could be in a place where you feel what you are doing is most important, like the absent mother who couldn’t make it to the hospital in time for her daughter’s chemo procedure. Or one could be in a place where you give and give so willingly and lovingly, like the father who always wants to be there. But we still see him breaking apart, which leads the next issue.
Getting sucked in
The more we give, the more we expect from those we give to. The father was trying so hard to keep his girl in as good health as is possible, yet he sees her destroying his hard work when she stays out late, goes drinking, dunks herself in cold seawater. One can only imagine her father’s disappointment and heartbreak. Yet we cannot control the decisions that another takes, we can try to advise them in an attempt to sway their judgement, but the decision eventually lies in their own hands. It is hardest to try to help someone yet not see cooperation from the ones we are helping. And depending on the situation there are times when it may be better to stop helping, there are times when it may be better to keep helping. With respect to convincing people, there is a “tactic” or “skill” of talking to another, where you try to lead him/her to (your) conclusion, but have them think they came to that conclusion themselves. Sometimes that works sometimes that doesn’t. So regardless of your tactic, one should always leave room for the other to make their own decisions – there is only so much you could help, you cannot make their decisions for them. Bracing yourself to let go could reduce disappointments when it doesn’t turn out as you would like, or lead to pleasant surprises if it does.
One may say her neighbour boy didn’t put in as much as her dad did to reach a stage where he could be disappointed. There may have been a moment, where she thought he was leaving her for college, and seeing how upset she was disappointed him. It was a different situation though, for to him, she was the one who helped him out of his hermit state and gave him the courage to go to college again after the death of his father. Yet to her, he was the one who helped her discover what she was yearning so badly for, and news of his leaving disappointed her. It was a misunderstanding. So perhaps they did put enough into each other for both of them to be disappointed. Disappointment is inevitable, but perhaps what is more important is managing how badly it affects you.
What about the self?
I remember a time when I said to myself, “If I focus on myself, rely on myself, and don’t bother about others, I won’t be disappointed.” And a voice replied, “Really?” And I recalled the times I messed up, I gave up, and I knowingly walked into shit because my will was weak in that moment. I remember being in a place where I had so much focus on myself that other people’s encouragement did not affect me at all – “what would YOU know about what I’M going through?” I did not care about others enough to be able to understand what others feel when they spoke to me like they cared about me. Put in another way, I did not care for others in the true sense of the word, so I thought others care about me in the same untrue way. In the movie, she had no cares in the beginning. With her good friend they went about leading the thrilling life – meeting random guys, kissing, trying to have sex, stealing someone’s credit card, leaving without paying. When she found out her good friend got pregnant, she cared enough to go to the clinic with her, and when her friend decided to keep the baby, she cared enough to want to be around when the baby’s due. And from then on, she was less hostile to her father’s care, perhaps because she was at a point where she just didn’t have that much energy, or perhaps because she was able to receive other’s care. Until you learn to give, you may never learn to receive.
Where is the “richest of joys”?
Short answer: In all the little things. It is amazing that the most moving scene was one as simple as watching her brother play in the garden. It was great that the scenes with family sitting by the bedside watching her as she drifts off were quick shots, with a nurse narrating what will be happening, as opposed to tired long drawn-out dramatic sobbing scenes (where I would struggle to cry because I keep reminding myself I should be crying). Spend time together, not just anytime, but quality time. Celebrating little achievements but magnifying them. Celebrating effort so they are never undermined. Birthdays that are not about eating cake but about the hurdles one overcame over the past year. Meals of thankfulness celebrating how one has been a blessing to loved ones. And especially, if one is lucky enough to be in a situation where everyone’s been working together towards one goal, perhaps helping someone reach their dreams, perhaps putting something together like a surprise party, and seeing it all come to fruition.
The importance of family.
True, we don’t get to pick our family. But that’s why family is training ground (for the future family). There is no such thing as perfection – we can only tend towards it. It is not about starting perfect. It is the walk that people take together through time. If it was all about choice, there will come a point when things fall apart and it is so bad that people say, “I don’t choose you anymore, I will choose another”. But it is not about choosing another, but choosing to learn to love one another, to fit one another, to serve one another. Whosoever might be naïve enough to think that 2 years or 5 years with one person, when we are all in our youthful prime, is enough to judge how this person will be like 20 or 50 years from now? People change with years, and we may never know our family members completely. But that should not keep us from loving the imperfect people that we all are.
