Your Children Are Not Your Future

Being a parent is tough! Yes I know that. I think it is my toughest job so far. It is considerably more tougher than  being an analyst or any kind of future job that I may involved in. It is even tougher than any of my graduate school courses. It is requires hard work, patience, persistence, intelligence, strategic planning, lots of financial calculations and a bit of politics too.

But unlike driving which needs a license, all living human being is 'allowed' to be a parent, fertility condition aside without any formal requirement. No matter how unhealthy (again fertility condition aside), financially unsound, mentally unstable you are no law whether human or divine will prevent you to have a kid, or many kids  (unless you are living in China). No wonder that children in today's society is still the most abused member of the society. Lack of attention which will hindrance their emotional development and lack of education that will undermine their intellectual advancement is only milder problem. While more serious problem is involving mental and physical abuse.

The world is not fair, especially to children. All of this unfairness starts from the children's reason d' etre which is not correctly formulated by their parents. So, let me ask you this, why do you have kids? Sensible person will answer 'to continue my legacy', 'to continue my business' or 'to continue my idealism of contributing to the society'. Although those answers still involved a lot of 'my' but its degree of selfishness can be considered lower than next. More selfish answer would be 'to take care of me when I am old', 'I want to make my house crowded', and 'I like to be surrounded by lots of grandchildren'. These means that you burdening your child even before he/she were born. Why would your child care if 'the house is crowded'?, he/she might like it quiet or why would your children care if you like to be surrounded by lots of grandchildren. But the worse would be parents who do not know why they would have children or to have children because God told them to.

Do not treat your children as an investment for yourself, but instead treat them as investment for themselves, for the society, for the human race. Parenthood involves more than just feeding and paying for education which many people naively thinking it is. Though none of us has the power to fully control the future, good parents will try as far as possible to create a path that which can be used to 'ensure' their children's future. They will try to build the lower foundation of the 'future home' that their children will live in. It is essential to create a condition that enable our future generation to be able to live better rather than leaving it entirely to the toss the coin (read : destiny). Only that way that our legacy can live on.

Paradoxically, do not raise your child the way you being raised. It is not necessarily bad way, but it is certainly not the 'best' way considering the dynamic environment that the children will face. Teaching the same thing all over again (no matter how different the teaching method is) will not give any value added. Show them new things, that way you also will learn. Show the new experience, even the one that you have not familiar with. And, show them that they are much better than you, because that is the only way that you can be regarded as successful parents.

Your children are not your future, they have their own.

Silly Things Relocated

Hi,

This is my new blog. Maybe some of you already familiar with my other blog http://hendrayadi.wordpress.com , that one still active.

I am starting a new blog purely not because of commercial consideration, instead I found serious contradiction in my previous. As you may already know I have some form of what they call attention deficit disorder which make me difficult to focus on one thing. I could not be Faisal Basri who always writes critical essay about political economics, Gde Prama who always writes about beautiful side of life or Frans Magnis-Suseno who always skillfully manage to connects the trinity of politics, philosophy and theology in his writings.

Unlike those great people, no matter how hard I try, I could never manage to contain myself focusing on only one subject in my writing. I like to write about many things. Starting from the most serious subjects, I like to write about : theology, philosophy, economic, politic, family matter, relationship, love, children, worklife, personal criticism, self-help, sexual enlightement, book review, video games review, to the most meaningless thing like I am writing now.

So, considering such a wide continuum, it is impossible for me to have only one blog. It will confuse my loyal reader (as if there is any) and the worse part is it will also confuse me. Thus, as a start to reorganizing my writing (and myself) I try to separate between more serious things and less serious thing. Subject about politics, economics and such can be found on my old wordpress blog, while the silly fringe things can be found in this blog.

In this way, I can be existed in both world and not losing myself as a human like most of my economist colleagues. As one quote from famous Quentin Tarantino "I just don't think it works if you take the whole thing too seriously".

May you have a good balanced life and GBU.

Best,

Irfan

Cheap Food Experiment

The global financial crisis finally reach our home (and yes, by 'home' I mean my home, not 'our country'). Though we are not involved in any of the 'Ponzi Scheme' or does not have any CDS's portfolio, the declining value of our paper portfolio nonetheless will require us (me and my wife) to re-think our investment strategy and of course.....cut costs.

But what costs? We do not have that high cost for lifestyles. We do not buy expensive clothes nor do I like to hang around with expensive gadgets all around my waist in all my pockets. Hmmm....what cost to cut?....It is impossible to cut on education....or the assistants' salaries....or the mortgage payments....And after doing some simple calculations, the most feasible cost to cut is....food.

Food...the very basic of human needs is surprisingly takes considerable portion of our earning and the food that we are consuming can not be considered as 'basic'. We spend lavishly on food because we believe food or to eat deliciously is the ultimate satisfaction on earth (lets leave the sex aside for a moment). Can we cut on food? We never do that, never think about it and that what makes the experiment on 'cheap food' is interesting.

We start on setting the budget. Each of us agree not to spend more than Rp7K for each meal whether day or night on work days. What happen to me is that I order my lunch from 'mamak' food stall nearby office with slight variations in day to day menu. My list of menu are consist of but not limited to 'ikan pindang', 'bakwan jagung', 'oseng-oseng kacang or kangkung', 'peyek' and of course 'sambal'. At any good day I can get good combination of menu for as low as Rp4.5K......hahaha......crazy cheap isn't it?.......this is fun.......and my wife eat 'pecel' at every lunch.....

At night we still go and eat at the mall or local food hall but must find something that is the cheapest. We found package value meal of Rp10k including drinks and vat in the biggest most expensive mall in the city. So, we order one and then we share. So, there are still cheap foods after all in thsi world.

We have been doing this 'experiment' for a few weeks. The result amazingly is we do not feel lesser human by having lesser luxury menu. We do not feel less satisfied. We do not feel sick for consuming cheap food, in fact, we feel healthier due to consuming more veggies. And the most important is......we have the budget to buy more sushis and steaks on the weekend :D

....eat to live......not live to eat....less money does not necessarily mean less quality.....

'Thank You My Wife for....'

Our office often had celebration. Someone get transferred to another branch, someone being transferred from another branch, someone get transferred to the jobless list (read : retire), promotion, birthday, or just some weird gathering which they called 'togetherness'.

In those occassions, normally the person being celebrated, of course beside the Big Boss, gives a speech. And, the template of the speech is always : first, they thank God; second, thank the bosses; third, thank the colleagues; fourth, apologize for something they do; fifth, apologize for something they did not do, and that is all. Are not they forgetting something?

Yup. They never mention someone which stand very close to them, the wife, which is dress nicely with the hairdo and classy kebaya. The wife which stand beside him at those very moment whom never get thanked to. The wife, which has to stay at home to raise the kids, serves the meal and comes to the 'dharma wanita' meeting which I believe is very torturing.

Different with those speech at the Academy Awards which always start with thanking someone very close and ended with the fans. Here, we do not regard the wife to be that much necessary to be thanked to. When a wife is good, it is their obligation, it is what they supposed to do, it is not a merit, it is not a good deed, it is nothing to be thanked for. 'The thank will come from God and you will end up in heaven'....I imagine that is what the husband thinks.

Well, I feel sorry for those wives, but they will go to heaven anyway so maybe I need not to be sorry at all. But I just want to say when my time comes to give the speech, I will 'put' my wife after God. That amazing woman beside me and said.......

'Thank you my wife for......'

Give In or Give Up

This might sound a bit romantic but I will try to eliminate the cheesy part :)

One day I have a chat with my old-friend about his romantic life. He is the type of guy that is always 'plunge' in a relationship totally, without hesitation, totally give in (if not a total surrender). He takes a stance that 'if you want to be happy, really happy, then you must not hold back' . He is no 'I only give 60 or 70 % of me so that In case something happen I will not totally loose it' type. He left himself exposed and of course...be vulnerable, voluntarily. And so far, it takes him nowhere. A bit of happiness but lots of dissapointments. No one stays with him for long.

Some of my other friends then would reminded him of the famous postulate of 'Do Not Give Yourself Totally'. But, as I analyze (remember that I'm an analyst) I do not againts the 'total surrender' strategy. The problem is not entirely in the 'give in' part, but in 'for whom' part and the 'when' part. Certain women, or in fact most women perceive that it is their role to do the 'give in' part in the relationship, not the men. Moreover, going over too early saying 'You have all my heart, I can not fall in love for anyone except you' will surely make your relationship going over the cliff. I myself will terrified with a women who fell completely with me (if any).

So, it is not wrong to 'give in' yourself as long as you are sure about the person, she is sure about you and the timing is right. But, then again, the problem are that the three justified parameters as I have mentioned will never be perfect 100%. So, what is 'sure'?, what percentage is 'sure'? If you do not know the answer then it is better to just give up to give in yourself........