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Today's
Meditation:
Sometimes we
just teach kids what our parents taught us, passing down
what we were taught as if it were the absolute
truth. But we always have the right to consider
closely just what we're teaching our young people, and
whether or not what we teach is going to help them to lead
happier and healthier lives. Sometimes we teach our
kids to avoid risk because we don't want to deal with
watching our kids go through trials, and that's more a
selfish motivation than an altruistic one.
Natalia
here brings up some very good points, points that may make
us uncomfortable if we try to pass them on to our
kids. Not teach thrift, but teach generosity and
"an indifference to money"? That's pretty
scary, because we take money very seriously, and our kids
ought to do so, too, if they don't want to end up broke
and destitute. But do we want our children to be
safe (like us, perhaps), or do we want them to search out
the challenges in life that will allow them to sometimes
be defeated so that they can learn from both positive
things and adversity? Much of what they learn later
in life comes from what we teach them early in life, and
the habits they've developed that allow them to embrace
life, or cause them to shrink from life in an attempt to
be constantly safe.
What
will our children-- and the other young people whom we may
influence-- end up desiring in life? If we can be
good role models to them, they'll end up desiring the
things that will make their lives fulfilling rather than
those things that are empty and devoid of meaning.
They'll end up wanting to contribute to the world rather
than simply take from it. They'll end up creating
lives of character rather than lives that satisfy other
people's ideas of what they should do.
We
can help our young people to grow into happy, healthy,
whole human beings, people who contribute to the world in
positive ways, but we must be willing to teach not just
the concepts, but also concrete ways to turn those
concepts into reality. Personally, I'd love to think
that I contributed even in the tiniest of ways to another
person's future happiness, and it's up to me to find the
ways to do so-- for their sakes, not for mine.
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