Kids - your most successful investment, or your greatest failure

A lot of people, so-called experts, write so many books out there teaching you how to raise your kids. Unfortunately, I do not agree that there should be "standard" way of raising and teaching your kids. If there exists such a standard, we won't be human beings; we become machines.

A lot of people raise their kids with the dependency on nanny or daycare. It is their choice and their freedom to do so, but I would not recommend this way at all. Watching all my 3 children growing up step by step, and reading a lot of 傳記, you can tell that a kid's personality and attitudes are molded during the first several years. Kids at this age require constant attention. Unlike love between grown men and women, you kids won't feel your love if your do not spend time with them. If you are not around, guess from whom your kids pick up their personality and attitudes? You know the answer.

Another thing. Kid's brain is like sponge. It can absorb a lot of things. I want to teach my kids a lot of things, with certain rules:
Only force basic and necessary skills.
Show good manners.
Allow time to play.
言教不如身教. Live to be an example.
言必行. 行必果.

What are basic and necessary skills? Well, it's your choice because there is no such standard. In my opinion, music, for example, is definitely not a required skill.

不管賺了多少個零, 子孫不肖, 錢的前面都要加一個負號. Your children don't need money, they need your devotion. Stop complaining and spend more quality time with your family.

Question #7 - Do you know what you are looking for?

Try to define Love between men and women, and you will find it quite hard to describe what love is.

Sometimes, when we say "Love me more" we mean "I want more of your time." "I love you" sometimes means "I want your body." After marriage, love is sometimes a kind of responsibility. For some people, love is "total ownership"; for others, love can be purely spiritual without physical contact.

So, do you know what you are looking for? Love, sex appeal, or time? Talk to your other half to see if both of you agree. I don't think there is a standard definition out there for love, that's why love gets so complicated, so interesting, and so irresistible between men and women.

Question #6 - How do you spend your extra time, and where?

Just saw an Ad in PBS - "Brain is such a thing to waste" and it triggered my thought.

These days we decided to start using the dish washer so Jill could save about 1 hour per day and get more free time doing her stuff. The truth is, she still does not have enough time and she is still tired at night.

It makes me wonder, through the advances of technology, human beings are supposed to have much more free time than before. But no one seems to have enough time. What happened to all the extra times? With all these free times, we are supposed to get wiser, more spiritual or happier. But do we?

Question #5 - Is good enough good enough?

This is a follow-up for my #4 question.

In my previous posting, I implied that to excel in career, it is better to have one or two outstanding attributes, while keep the others low in the early beginning. Well, that rule does not really apply to your life.

Life, after all, is not always in a competition mode. Even though some people prefer that, I prefer to have my life happy and easy. Unlike what we have been taught in school, I personally believe, for certain things, good enough is good enough.

That goes back to another question I always debate with my wife. Do you prefer to be back and forth between 100 and 60, or stay stable at 80? Depending on your question, my answer varies.

Take sleep for example, I need to have 100% sleep sometimes. Keeping my energy level always at 80% will eventually make me tired. Eating is the same. I can have lousy meals sometimes but I need some good ones to compensate.

A lot of people find it hard to believe how I can work at home for 5 years. It is hard to have a concrete answer but I think this is what happens.

I can definitely do most of the things far beyond well if I try and work them really hard. By doing so, I know I will sacrifice something else in the end. Measuring and weighing the importance for the things to be accomplished and the things I rather not lose, I chose my current life. The best gift I can give my family is my precious time, not money.

After listening to my story, what will be your choice?

Question #4 - What is your game strategy?

I play a lot of computer games, mostly old Role-Play-Game or turn-based game. Sometimes, you can find certain analogy between game and life.

Take Spider Solitaire for example. You cannot tell if you can finish a game or not in the beginning, you do not know the future. Depending on which card you turn, you can turn a promising game into a dead end or vice versa, pretty much like the choices in life.

For RPG, it is better to have a balanced TEAM in certain games. But for the Raising type of game, I find that a balanced character in the beginning of the game is not a good idea. A balanced character means a low average for all attributes, which also means this character will not stand out in the case of competition. On the other hand, if the character is heavily biased in attributes, you can do certain tasks easily and win competitions easily.

I think it is true to a certain point that in real life, it is better to have a biased characteristics for a person to go up the career ladder. If you are very good at certain things, it is highly likely you will be picked to perform those things. You can accumulate your experience and reputation easily, meanwhile, picking up other skills. If you are just average, you will probably end up being average because you won't have any chance to show yourself.

So, what is your strategy, if you treat life as a game?