Life: Learning from the negative (Take 2 of infinite)

"Be thankful for the difficult people in your life, for they have shown you exactly who you do not want to be."

I was taught that you could always learn something from anyone. I was constantly reminded in my youth that no matter who I was around, I should learn the good things from good people while learning to avoid bad things from bad people. Of course a little generalized, but the point made it through to me. So stumbling across this quote one day just reminded me the many advises my mother gave me that I did not really take to heart in my more immature days.

I cannot say that I was fortunate or unfortunate. Compared to the friends I have made, I say that that I may have been more unfortunate; but compared to most of the world, I am quite fortunate. Of course, I have jumped between these two things quite often without a satisfactory answer. One day after conversing with a friend about his inability to identify his passion in life, I thought on some of the things I said that helped me enjoy life. I found that there really is no need to identify if my past was fortunate or not. I learned from my past and the only waste is if I didn't take anything positive or negative out of the experience.

There is no reason for me to compare my past life with others. We have all walked different paths. Paths that no other person can fully understand. I look at my friends, each with their own goals or lack of goals. Friends with a harsher life who enjoy life; friends with an easier life who are lost; friends with harsher life living in self pity; friends with a good life still continuing the good life. The only commonality is that the ones doing "well" are those who have embraced their past. Albeit, the last part may be more difficult for some than others. But you cannot change the past, so you cannot just be stuck in self pity.

I digress from a couple points I wanted to make. To the parents, no matter how much I complained about my mother repeating herself and mocking her by repeating the same thing but with a different attitude, I was still listening. Do not give up on keeping your stance. You do not need to answer why or how. The constant nagging, reminder, and repetition are what drove me to understand the full weight of such values when something in myself just clicks with realization that truth behind such values. Someday, I imagine I will also be repeating these same things to an immature version of myself and wonder how my mother ever had the energy to put up with me.

The other point that I constantly wonder about is if I can learn the empathy and kindness that I have without such experiences with "difficult" people. Compared to most people that I am around, I have probably more than average share. I also notice that people in similar situations also tend to have higher empathy. Can someone have the same level of empathy without such "difficult" people? Do these "difficult" people come from the lack of others like themselves? Can I teach them empathy without the use of another difficult person?

Parable: Two friends are walking through the desert

Two friends are walking through the desert.

Some point during the journey, they had an argument. One friend slapped the other.

The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, he wrote in the sand:
"Today my best friend slapped me in the face."

They kept on walking, until they found an oasis where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but his friend saved him.

After he recovered from nearly drowning, he wrote on a stone: "Today my best friend saved my life."

The friend, who had slapped and saved his best friend, asked him, "Why after I hurt you, you wrote
in the sand, and now, you write on a stone?"

The other friend replied: "When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand, where the winds of forgiveness can erase it. When someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone, so no wind can ever erase it."


Learn to write the bad in sand, and to carve the good in stone.

They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then an entire life to forget them.



有兩個朋友，在沙漠中旅行。

在旅途中的某點，他們吵架了，其中一個打了另外一個一記耳光。

被打的覺得很痛，但一言不語，在沙子上寫下："今天我的好朋友打了我一巴掌。"

他們繼續往前走，發現了一個綠洲，於是他們決定先洗一個澡。被打巴掌的那位陷入流沙差點淹死，幸好被剛才打了他的朋友救起來了。

被救起後，拿了一了：今天我最好把小劍在石頭上刻的朋友救了我一命。

一旁好奇的朋友問說：為什麼我打了你以後，你要寫在沙子上，而現在要刻在石頭上呢 ?

那一個朋友笑笑回答說：“當我們被一個朋友傷害時，要寫在砂，讓諒解的風抹去它;相反的，如果被幫助，我們要把它刻在石頭上，如此任何風都不能抹滅它！”

要學會將你的傷害寫在沙上，而將別人對你的好刻在石頭上 。

有人說花費一分鐘去找一個特別的人，一小時去欣賞他，一天去愛他，但是之後卻要花一輩子的時間才能遺忘他。