A Glimpse Into My Parent’s Lives: The Good Things To Learn And The Bad Things To Avoid
By: Christie Li
Tags: Mental Heath, Parenting, Life Lessons, Life, Self Improvement

1. My generation is much more fortunate compared to my parent’s generation

One of the first lessons that I came to realize is the differences between my generation and my parent’s generation.

A few decades ago in Hong Kong, right before the economy began to skyrock, most people were poor immigrants from mainland China. Simply speaking, people in my parent’s generation mostly strived for money and starting families.

Most would take any job for a living: from being a factory worker to being a cleaner in a restaurant, to being a salesperson on the streets. All kinds of jobs, from the high-end ones to the low-end jobs.

It's all about survival back then; the only way out for them was to get a job, multiple jobs even, and earn as much as they could on their own.

If it wasn’t for this comparison, I would’ve never realized how much more fortunate my generation is.

Precisely because of this, I learned to make use of the privilege I have: the technology, the financial resources, and the endless support from my family.

The fact that I have the opportunity to attend an expensive university degree as an international student to which my parents are paying for.

The fact that I had the privilege to get a scuba diving license at the age of 17, and another advanced level at the age of 19, both being fully funded by my parents.

The fact that I can travel around to different countries and experience so much more since a young age.

The list goes on. The main point is that I have all kinds of opportunities that my parents would die for back then when they were my age.

I learned to make use of my privileges to try out different things and to become knowledgeable. This includes learning to care about not only myself but other things in life — animal rights, human rights, politics. The values that my parent’s generation value less back then unfortunately because their lives were more money-driven.

2. The importance of finding your life compass

Growing up, my parents never really considered what they like in their lives. They never thought about what they enjoy and hate about their jobs.

Example: my dad worked in a company for over 7 years just to realize that he hated his job all along. He hated the office politics, he hated the people, he hated the fact that his workplace was in mainland China. Yet, he stuck with it for years for the income, albeit all the lament and unhappiness.

Perhaps one of the main components to this result is the fact that he doesn’t have the privilege to experience life, thus discovering what he truly enjoys.

More importantly, my parent’s generation didn’t acknowledge the importance of understanding themselves.

Which element(s) in your job sparks the most joy? What is your purpose in life? What are your life views? What are your work views? How do your life view and work view overlap with each other? How do they contradict each other?

Never in my life will I hear my mom or dad wonder about these questions. Every day, they get up, they go to work, they come home after, they do house chores and they call it a day.

Looking into their lives make me realize how important it is to understand myself at an early stage. Precisely, to understand me better so that I can find my life compass and avoid unnecessarily mid-life crisis later on.

This is, to avoid working at a job that I hate because of money. Or to live a life without knowing my purpose. Or to miss out on opportunities to things that I enjoy only to regret at the end.

3. People shouldn’t sacrifice their physical and mental health for work

Due to my parent’s culture and background which they grew up with, they will usually choose to work at the expense of their health.

For instance, my mom will rather sacrifice sleep time for work. She will sometimes sleep at 3 a.m or 4 a.m just for the nighttime stock market. She will later wake up at 8 a.m to prepare for the next day's daytime stock market.

Despite my numerous reminders, she usually ignores me and continues her nocturnal lifestyle.

At this point, she is both nocturnal and diurnal.

Due to this philosophy, what turns out to be clinical signs of depression are just minor sufferings to bear in my parent’s eyes. What turns out to be a physical health issue is just a normal phenomenon that “everyone grew up with” aka “just get over with it”.

This is just one of the examples and I can list so much more. The point is that they will prioritize money over a wide range of other issues. The most common saying I heard is: “we all grew up bearing our own sufferings. Where else do you think all this money is coming from? They don’t grow on trees.”

I’m not judging them for what they value, after all their hard work is the reason for my privilege. In turn, this made me realize what I want in my life: for my life, never would I sacrifice my health for work.

4. Life is all about networking, adapting, and your attributes

One final note that I picked up on from them is the one common quality that everyone in my parent’s generation had in them: the extensive networking, the ability to adapt, and the willingness to accept hardship.

I lost count of how many times my mom changed jobs and switched careers, her life was never flat.

Yet, throughout the ups and downs of that bumpy journey, she relies solely on networking to find her next job (she never need to apply for a job apart from her first one because she had connections).

She has an astonishing ability to adapt according to life changes. Even now, during a pandemic where her insurance business completely plummets, she still manages to adapt and find other ways to support our family’s living expenses.

She also has an unimaginable willingness to accept hardship at difficult times.

The same goes for my mom’s friends, my dad, and other people in their generation.

It is one of the few things that will never change regardless of age and era. It is one of the qualities that will be useful in life no matter where, what, or when. It is one of the attributes that I, although have not yet mastered, saw in my parents.