When being right is wrong... by: Ian MacKenzie

There was a time in my life when I just had to be right. I would go to great lengths to prove to the other party(s) how right I was. Funny thing, no one ever thanked me for setting them straight. For all the knowledge I had :P, people rarely asked me to enlighten them.

It can take a long time to figure out you’re just being a jerk! Now I try hard to keep my trap shut. I’m not perfect and sometimes slip back into know-it-all-ness, but the predictable response back reminds me that it’s not always right to be right.

Gail Blanke suggests four questions to ask yourself next time you’re feeling “right”:

1. Do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy?
2. What’s more important to me: making someone wrong for the moment or having a great long-term relationship?
3. What would happen if I let go of the urge to correct and concentrated instead on the rewards of connecting?
4. Could I let someone else be right for just a minute before I say what I think?

Growing Up!

I can’t help but be amazed at the very fast rate my eldest son is growing up. I was looking at him today and it seems like it was only yesterday that I was cradling him in my arms. WHEW! Time sure does fly. He is a boy of 11 years now and starting to get so conscious of his looks that taking a bath, dressing up and looking himself up at the mirror seems to take forever. He’s even discarded his Batman and Spiderman tees for a more casual and mature looking clothes and of late has been going crazy trying to style his hair ala Johnny Depp. Loads his top with tons of hairstyling gel and walks ever so slowly so as not to ruin his funny looking hairstyle that looks like a bed of thorns! Hahaha. Funny, but I was the exact opposite when I was at his age… and he peppers me with questions like, when and at what age does hair appear on my armpits, under his nose and any other place where hair grows? Is my “Adam’s Apple” protruding already on my throat? Did my shoulder broaden already? All of which I try to answer truthfully and honestly. One time, I was busy doing something and he starts battering me with his growing up questions and I say rather annoyingly: “Why you so concerned about these things and why are you so in a hurry to grow up?” He didn’t answer my question but I told him that: in time, you will grow up to be a fine young man and all these questions will eventually be answered… in time. Now he may not be that satisfied with the way I answered his questions but I try to answer them truthfully and in such a way that I may be easily understood by an 11 ear old boy. Perhaps children of today’s generation maybe totally different from my time with all these techie gadgets and toys that they go crazy about. Cellphones, Mp3 players, Xboxes, laptops, internet, friendster, MTG, pokemon, etc, etc, etc. During my time it was sipa, taguan, jolens, patintero, siyato and tex and tirador. WOW! Even toys and games do evolve. I think somebody out there will agree with me that the games then were a lot better than all the stuff kids nowadays are playing with. Well, I just hope that the kids of today will likewise learn to play the games that I grew up playing with. Signs of the times………………….

Accident...

I was contemplating on writing a post today but somehow my mind’s all messed up that I can’t think of something to write about. Well… let me just share with you a reflection that I had regarding an incident that happened a few months ago. It was a gruesome accident that I witnessed involving a passenger van and a ten wheeler truck. The passenger van was Cagayan de Oro bound and full of passengers while the truck was coming from a warehouse and backing up onto the highway when the accident happened. The van crashed onto the truck and apparently the driver of the van did not notice or see the truck at all. The van was beyond recognition and as a result, a young lady perished. I presume that there was no other casualty except for this young lady who later on I came to know as the daughter of someone working for a large multinational company located here in Mindanao. I do not know the family of this young lady personally but I feel for their loss. Hence I decided to write this to reflect on this very unfortunate experience. I too am a parent and a husband, maybe a lousy one, sometimes grouchy but nevertheless a parent to 3 lovely and beautiful children and a husband to a gorgeous and charming woman. There comes a point in time in the lives of our children that we as parents have to let go. Terrified? Yes! The thought that they will be on their own terrifies me, a lot of what if’s, the how? and the what? There are a whole lot of questions that need to be answered. Some of the answers I may never know in this lifetime, but there is one thing that I am pretty sure about; I love my children and that love I suppose is beyond measure. I think that only GOD knows how much I really love my kids. Maybe that’s how we are as parents. We have this fear inside of us every time a child or our children leave home. Its like, we wish that a part of us has to go with them, to look after them, to protect them, to keep them safe, to remind them that it is time to eat, that its time to go home or that its time for this and time for that, to take a bath, blah, blah, blah, etc. But it can’t be, at some point, we will have to let go and like it or not, they will be on their own. To make and find their own life and purpose in this world. And when that time comes, it will be terrifying for us parents. Maybe, we’ll just pray to the ALMIGHTY for their protection and well-being.

When I was still young, I never really knew why mama would always pester me with all sorts of reminders, I never knew why she would scold me if I would come home late, and I never knew why she does what she does to us, her children. I never knew… never understood… in fact, resented it to the point that I would find ways to make her mad or angry… until I too became a parent. Well maybe, that’s how the cycle goes…

Perhaps, I’ll just pray to the good LORD that he prepares me for the time that day will come… to strengthen me and dispel my fears. In the meantime, I would like to also mourn the loss of that young lady to that horrible accident. I pray that her parents and family find meaning in the loss of their beloved daughter.

I hope this post doesn’t make you miserable. I sincerely hope that we parents enjoy the company of our children while they are still with us. I too am a busy parent like most of you probably are. Sometimes it takes something like this for us to realize a lot of things, like how busy we are with work and how little time we have for our family more so, for our children.