Repeat & Shuffle

You know how you can just listen to songs over and over. Those same few ones that you will never get sick of ever. Then you can just eat the same thing over and over, no matter which food you crave for from time to time, you return to the same old comfort food again. Then there's those same few things you do over and over, even though you know it might not be the best thing to do, but you just do it.

It runs in human's nature. We are all resistant to change. We like routine and we stick so hard to it like super glue.

I've reached this particular stage when I'm placed in a position with more experience and knowledge, yet I feel so unwilling to part with this experience to someone fresh and raw. It's this vicious cycle of letting someone experience it for themselves before they truly understand the feeling. I feel really fortunate to have many older people around me sharing with me their life experiences and giving me advice, guiding me in my life.

Because I know it's hard to let someone younger understand what they have been through and they pray you don't experience the same hardship they have felt, but the truth is, you really gotta let that person you want to teach to go through it as well to fully understand what it is.

It's cruel ain't it?

The more you want to protect someone, the harder they will fall.

It's just a learning process, and through all these years of skating, I've literally learnt the meaning of picking up oneself after each fall. It's only through these hard falls that I learn and the scars remind me of how much pain I have endured to achieve something I have really worked hard for.

I wonder if I will be the active or passive parent, who will stand to watch my kid fall and let him/her pick himself/herself up, then act as if nothing had happened. Is the short-term "harm" or lack of concern worth to toughen the kid up for the future harder falls?

If your teen went through a rough patch with matters that deal with the heart, are you supposed to tell him/her to not trust the opposite gender anymore? If your child were to tell you of his/her "abnormal" sexual preferences, are you in the position to force him/her to conform to the conventions of society? I guess it's really a learning process, let them all go through the ups and downs in life, prod them a little back into track if they veer too far off, and watch them grow up to be independent adults. Because it's so hard to differentiate what's right and wrong, they are just too many grey areas in so many matters. We are forced to change our mindset to be more subjective about many things as well to catch up with times.

Parents love using the "in the past I used to...", it really doesn't work anymore. No matter what happened in the past, it will always remain there. The most successful parents to me, are those who are adaptive to changes, going on with times, and doing what they know will benefit the child in the long term.

Most importantly, they must know when is the right time to let go. Then again, that is subjective as well.

No wonder it's so hard being a parent. One will only truly understand the amount of care, dedication and devotion a parent has to bring up a child when one becomes a parent. Just like how one will learn to love a person wholeheartedly after having loved so hard and fell out of love so badly to appreciate it.

Every obstacle faced is another step closer to knowledge and experience which opens up many other doors in life.