I find that when I tell people I don’t love my parents that I am somehow obtuse. Often, I am told they love you. You may not like the way they love you. But they love you. Wall, let me put it this way. My father keeps trying to convince me to get life insurance so that he “can get money if I die” because I am such a waste of time and money. Now, I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a bully. That has been going on my entire life from both of my parents. Their goal, as is tradition, is to raise their children to have grandkids and then have them take care of them when they are old.
If I do not fulfill this role, I am useless. That means I am supposed to marry a girl and have kids, have lots of money, and become a caretaker when my parents were of age. I am directly told my purposes is not happiness. It is to fulfill my obligations to my family.
I cannot speak for all the Eastern Cultures. However, I do feel this is the basis for most of the Eastern Cultures.
I feel like this has been conditioned into almost every culturally Eastern kid from the start. It is the expectation. It is hurtful. It does take a great hit to self-esteem. I most definitely had that problem growing up. I was told I wasn’t good enough every day. To this day, with my six college degrees, with my work with major companies, becoming a published researcher, and whatever else I have achieved in life, nothing has been good enough.
It is not my parent’s fault. They are conditioned to see this one perfect image of what I am supposed to be. It is engrained through the generations. Just like the protest of the inequality of women for Iran currently, it is a long cultural tradition. Is it wrong? I like to think of it as, is it wrong to condemn those that have been conditioned to believe in what seems to us diabolical? How do we know that we have not also been conditioned to believe in the wrong beliefs? I feel like I have been wronged. But was it not my parents that have been wronged too? Was it wrong for my grandparents to have enforced this long tradition of abuse? The cycle of blame can go on endlessly.
It is my job to be like water. Bend around that which refuses to move. Change. Adapt. If a rock sits before my path, go around. If I can’t go around, go over. If I can’t go over, become a vapor, and pass through. If I can’t do that, seek the cracks in the rock. Become solid. Expand. Crack the rock open.
You can’t bend a rock with your will. Your will is immaterial. Your action is not.
