Measured Success

Recently, among my circle of friends and family, I found this little article circulating.  Today, a friend of mine (one who had linked to the article in her GChat status), linked to this response.  I suppose this is my take on it, though I don't know that I can fully put myself in that situation, as I can never be a Chinese mother, though I do have one myself.  I'm not going to go on and say who is right and who isn't, not going to go into the psychology of child-rearing, and I'm not going to tell anyone how to raise his/her children.  I'm not a parent myself, and perhaps I didn't have the most typical of Chinese parents, or at least according to Amy Chua, I didn't.  However, I just find it very interesting the scope of the article and all that.

I just noted that in the headline of the article it reads:

Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids?

And then the first line of the article suddenly jumps into:

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too.

Hm... I don't know, there seems to be something of a dichotomy here.  At least to me there is.  What is this dichotomy?  First, happiness and success.  Are they one and the same?  The second, math whizzes, music prodigies and success.  Same question.  Okay, so maybe dichotomy is a strong word, but I do find the immediate juxtaposition that Ms. Chua strings together within her article somewhat... well... hard to swallow.  Of course, who am I to say anything?  Relatively speaking, I'm hardly a typical "Chinese success story".  I didn't get straight As in school, I didn't go to an Ivy League university for undergraduate, I didn't go to a "West Coast Ivy" like Stanford or Cal Tech, I didn't even go to a top 5 state university in the nation.  Sure I played piano when I was younger, classically, my teacher lamented at my practice habits and called me her student with the most "unrealized potential", which essentially is an offhanded way of saying I could've been good if I tried or worked harder, so no, I never played in Carnegie Hall, or performed with some orchestra on tour.  Biggest thing I've done is play in a couple of local competition recitals, a couple of local piano teacher showcase recitals, a master class, and a personal recital when I graduated from high school, oh, and I got paid once to play for a Unitarian church service.  Now, I have a job, maybe I'll stay at it, maybe I won't.  For one, I'm not a doctor, nor a lawyer, nor an engineer.  By my schooling, I'm supposed to be an accountant (which I'm not right now vocationally), and I'm not even too sure I want to be that either.  Does this mean I have failed to succeed?  In other words, does this mean I'm a failure?

I have a job (in this economy), I feel I'm living a well adjusted life, full of loving friends and family, and I'm happy with where I am, I'm content.  Now, am I successful?  Hard to say.  It sort of begs the question: what is success?  Is it based on what I have?  If that's the case, then I'd say I'm moderately successful.  I mean, I have nice apartment, a car, a job, a computer, some decent pieces of musical equipment, a my fair share of toys and gadgets, a bachelor's and a master's, then again, I also have debt from school.  On that same note, there are a lot of things I don't have, a girlfriend, a house, lots of money, etc...  Still, then, the question of success eludes me.  I can only suggest that I am not unsuccessful.  This inclines me towards the notion that success then, is a subjective and relative term.  To me, success is measured by an end goal, therefore, the phrase "successful person" doesn't really hold much water.  Think about it, realistically, what is the end goal of a person?  I can say an experiment was either a success or failure by its results.  I can say that a basketball coach is successful or not by how his/her team plays, by the team's record, are they winning more games?  Are the players getting better?  Yet what is that measure in a person?  Wealth?  Acclaim?  Character?  I posit, that at best, we can simply point out those that are "not unsuccessful".  While the question is the same, the nature of what we measure is different with happiness.

I'm not here to say that it's bad to have/be a math whiz or musical prodigy, but I think everything needs to be put in an appropriate context, and ultimately that is the context of life.  Chinese parents will spend tens of thousands of dollars (I'm not kidding) and hours for the musical and academic enrichment of their children, and for what purpose?  As an aficionado of music, I'd be the first to tell you that I think children should all be given the opportunity to appreciate and make music, yet Ms. Hsu, in her response brings up the very legitimate point that Chinese (Asian) parents will often be displeased if music were to inspire their children to become a professional musician (or, as an ongoing joke, any profession not inclusive of doctors, lawyers, or engineers).  Contextually then, what is the purpose of learning a musical instrument?  Generally in the case of Chinese children, piano and/or violin.  While perhaps that is asking a lot of a child, I don't know that I would condone asking one to do something he/she cannot answer why he/she is doing it (even if the answer is as simple as, "I like it").  One thing I've noted about Chinese culture, is that it's all about appearances, but to me, it frankly is a horrible reason to do something because every other Asian child is doing it or so that you can brag to your friends about your child.  I'm sorry, but being able to play Rachmaninoff's Variations on Paganini at age 8 is hardly indicative to me of "good parenting", and yes, when you tell your friend how much your son/daughter studies/practices you're really saying, "Look at how well I discipline my children."  While I don't doubt that every single Chinese parent has a picture of who/what he/she would want his/her child to become, there remains an issue; is the child on board?  My personal experience, as well as my observations fellow 2nd generation Chinese children around me, has shown that generally, Chinese parenting is very short sighted.  Ms. Hsu points out a lack of drive in Chinese children growing up, and I attribute that to above-mentioned short-sightedness.  It's hard to get anyone really motivated about something if the driving reason behind doing it is being told by someone else to do it.  You ask the question "Why?" enough times and you'll quickly realize that a lot of things these kids do simply because their parents have programmed them to be like that.  Why get good grades?  To go to a good college.  Why go to a good college?  To get a good job.  Why get a good job?  To make money to support a family.  While none of these things are undesirable, I certainly don't see those as the purpose of existence.

Ms. Chua is to be commended for her perseverance in pushing her children to achieve, but again, we have to ask the question "to what end?"  Certainly I believe in a degree of regimen growing up teaches us responsibility, but to essentially obliterate any "frivolous" childhood activity?  Perhaps, I'll be accused of becoming "too American" but that hardly seems healthy.  The Atkins diet is good, but that doesn't mean that's all you do for the rest of your life.  We are to enjoy in the people, the places, and the things that God has placed around us, so living a life where what you "like" is irrelevant and "having a good time" is wasteful hardly seems like something God would want for us.  In the case of music, the children are often asked to "grow out of" whatever they spent all that time, sweat, and dollars getting this stuff hammered into them.  Isn't that frivolous?  Certainly there is something other than music that can teach discipline.  So, that begs the question, why have them learn music in the first place?  The grand scheme of things, ultimately, I believe is for your children to grow up into productive, well-adjusted adults.  How do painful hours of sitting in front of a piano either practicing, performing, or in lessons help?  I'm not ungrateful my mom had me learn piano, and sometimes I do wish she pushed me harder, on that same note though, it's because in retrospect, there are a lot of things I would enjoy doing now had I been a better pianist as a child, in other words, I'm still playing piano.  My father once told me after I graduated, "Now you can play well enough to play for praise in church, to me, that means the piano lessons were worth it."  Context.  Not that playing for church was the goal of my piano lessons, but, there needs to be something beyond that last recital if your child isn't going to become the next Lang Lang, even if it is the simple appreciation of music.  I'm not accusing Ms. Chua of ruining her children's childhoods, no, it sounds like her husband does take them out to fun stuff, movies, baseball games, etc...  Nonetheless, this no-nonsense style of raising her children is exactly that, a style, there's no basis for her to posit that hers is better than others, to do so is simply arrogance. 

I suppose what makes this article somewhat intriguing, is this concept of superiority, that one is better than the other.  Certainly, Ms. Chua brings up very good points in not allowing her children to give up, and I applaud her for her tenacity and her dedication, however, under what presumed authority can she say that what she is doing is "better" than the next parent who is perhaps by her standards more "lenient" on his/her child?  I would posit the following broad generality based on the sort of broad sweeping generality that Ms. Chua has illustrated in her article: while Chinese parents may know (or at least think they know) what is best for their children, they don't know their children all that well.  In her article, Ms. Chua all but writes off the concept of self-esteem, and sure, she's entitled to her opinions and her thoughts, and thus, she's very hard on her children when it comes to results.  I posit this though, and perhaps Ms. Chua is different, but most Chinese parents aren't aware of how hard their children are on themselves.  Going back to the music example, since that is one of the more understandable examples, "you played it wrong" is probably the most useless piece of feedback anyone can give/get.  While the parent has spent the money sending the child to music lessons, the child is the one who has spent the time and effort studying the music, so therefore, the child probably knows more about music, or at the very least more about whatever piece he/she is practicing than the parent does, and generally will know if/when it is played incorrectly.  It's kind of like telling someone who's parking he/she is close to the curb AFTER the car has run up on the sidewalk.  While it's nice of Ms. Chua to think that there are no natural limitations in regards to what her children can do (at least musically and academically), can she affirm that the way she does things works for both of her children exactly the same way?  No.  While the intention may be good, a lot of times the comparison of one child to another comes across to the "lesser" child as simply, "Why are you so dumb?" or "What's wrong with you?" rather than "You can do it too".  Calling your child "garbage" can be a learning implement, but as with all implements it must be properly used to be effective. 

The more I think about how I want to proceed with this, the more I realize how this can exponentially bubble into any number of long-debated topics, from positive versus negative reinforcement to nature versus nurture.  Now, I'm no psychologist, so I'm not going to get into all of this, so I suppose I've touched upon everything that really kind of irked me about this article.  Maybe a Chinese kid can score higher on a math test or play some remarkably difficult piece at a younger age, but is that really all there is to it?  If it is, then life is dumb.  I'm all for giving children opportunities, but they have lives too, at some point in time, they need to live it.

On a lighter note...

I kind of posted about this earlier, but now with the advent of the new hit musical Rock of Ages, it's gotten me thinking a little more.  While the concept of shoving as many great radio hits into some semblance of a storyline would be cool, wouldn't it be that much more hilarious if it were entirely out of context?  I think that's part of what made Mamma Mia a great hit, well sort of.  Not that I don't want to see Rock of Ages, I totally do, but the story is too contrived to fit these songs in, of course, that's probably the easiest way to do it, but what if, what if we took something completely unrelated and then throw in stuff that marginally works?  I'm not claiming this would be an immediate hit, but it definitely would make things interesting, and I think hilarity would ensue.  For example, I love Phantom of the Opera, and I'm sure now Andrew Lloyd Webber would be turning in his grave to see me do this to his musical, but you feasibly could replace the score with songs by The Police, and it would still kind of work.  I mean, I can totally see the Phantom singing Every Move You Make rather than Music of the Night or something.  Someone is now going to throw something at me, so I'll stop.

If we'd only try...

I think this post is actually somewhat a continuation of my previous post, however disconnected my ideas conceptions were.  I heard recently that, "there are no such things as soul mates".  It's a very interesting statement, regardless of whether or not I agree or disagree.  Of course, this ultimately boils down to what we define as a "soul mate".  Intuitively, I'm inclined to think of a soul mate as someone whom God has prepared for someone else, and perhaps this is where my definition deviates from issuers of such statements.  However, let's not get into that, I'm not here to discuss God's providence and marriage.  Rather, let's consider a lot of times what society today construes as being a "soul mate".  From my understanding (which I concede is rather limited), modern culture depicts soul mates as two people who just kind of "click".  They'll always get along, they'll always be happy together, etc...  I believe this view is often perpetuated by the constant "love-at-first-sight" kind of romances that happen in all sorts of fictional works; books, movies, television programming, etc...

Now, I want to move to a point where we step away from all this "romance" stuff, because this concept I think applies to all relationships in general.  It's natural that we connect with some people more naturally than others.  When we converse with one another, we generally need something to talk about.  Hence why people who have the same interest generally can and will group together, they have something to talk about.  Already there is the bond of a shared passion there.  However, I hope that everyone would agree with me that friendship should be more than the things we have in common.  Being human, there will ALWAYS be times when we are in disagreement with others, where my interests conflict with someone else's (my friend's).  This could be a somewhat alien concept (while I hope it isn't, I wouldn't be surprised if it was), friendships are relationships in spite of the differences that separate us.  Ultimately, I think the closeness of a relationship is measured by the amount of time spent with the other person.  Time spent with each other may or may not be physical time, it could be done over the phone, Skype, mail, etc... depending on each person.  Naturally, physical proximity is that much more poignant than more "long-distance" means of communication, but still, it is time spent with the other person.

We as a people are very good at compartmentalizing things.  Each aspect of life goes into its own little box and never shall items be mixed.  However, we as people are individuals, not stacks of boxes.  I know for myself, I have a little hobby box here, and I hope to develop relationships with people in that box, but if I don't see them outside of the context of that hobby, how can I really get to know them?  How can they get to know me?  Perpetually, I'd probably end up as "that guy that's pretty fun to play volleyball with".  It takes continual work and effort to get to know someone, but oftentimes we kind of just "expect" it to happen.  We may not believe in "soul mates" but it's definitive that we connect with some people better than others.  Even then, there isn't anyone out there that won't take work to get to know, we don't make best friends every other day.  Part of what makes that friendship special is the time that has been invested into it.  What am I putting in?

Do we even care anymore?

Sorry if my recent posts have been somewhat brooding as of late, that just tends to be my state of mind.  Perhaps I should take the, "If you have nothing positive to say then don't say anything" approach but then, I'd be starving all 2 readers of this blog of any legitimate content.  I'm not really here to provide any scathing commentary on the state of society and modern culture, but I feel like it's really gotten to a point where the status quo has degenerated into some form of polite apathy.  Have you ever noticed that?  I suppose I'm personally as much to blame as anyone, I do it a lot too, and as much as I want to blame my natural inclination towards introversion, I don't find it to be much of an excuse. 

More and more I find that we try to occupy ourselves with various hobbies, past-times, etc...  We involve ourselves with various clubs and associations, getting on the latest trends of the hottest hobbies, researching the best gear and the most effective techniques to do whatever it is we suddenly love doing better.  We find the hottest locations and where everyone goes locally to do whatever it is you do.  Not to say that this is a bad thing, it's not.  Perhaps it's been taken a little too far though?  Maybe I'm just being cynical and jaded, but has suddenly the thing we're doing suddenly become more important who we do it with?  Again, I'm not trying to throw out some scathing commentary on our current cultural condition, but rather just a simple observation how things seem to me.

Maybe I'm just strange, but have you ever wanted to have just a deeper conversation?  As sappy as they are, why do you think Hollywood keeps making these "soul mate" chick flicks?  Why are we so stirred by men who understand each other so as to be as brothers?  (I hope that this analogy still rings true today, despite the general degradation of familial bonds within recent times).  When I think about it though, 80% of my conversations are "small talk" or "shop talk".  "How are you doing?" has become a cliched kind of greeting where the obligatory answer is the synonym of a shrug or if you're a little more optimistic "Pretty good."  Not to say that I want to go discussing deep philosophy with the next random stranger I meet or that every other conversation has to be about something "deep", but there certainly it is a lonely existence where we cannot share in life with others.  While much of life is shared doing stuff together, lives are also matters of the heart; what is weighing upon our hearts, what is inspiring us, etc...  It's sad that our interest is only piqued when we discuss things we like to do rather than how the person we're talking to actually is.  I don't know that it's that we're so cold and apathetic that we don't care or want to care, but rather, perhaps we're just too caught up in ourselves.  Let's open our eyes up a little.

Growing up isn't easy

I'm not dead, just, lazy?  Anyways, today's random thought, is about growing up.  I remember as a child, I looked up to adults and think, "Man, they got it all figured out."  Today, I am among that population of "adults", even though I still think to myself, "Man, they got it all figured out."  Implicitly saying, I don't have it figured out, which I don't.  I suppose part of me is caught up in the consumerist attitude of everything being just kind of given to me when I pass "Go" enough times and can pay up.  Perhaps I'm just cynical, but the great epiphany of life, at least for myself, is that there isn't a great epiphany of life.  Things don't just fall into place and everything makes sense and works out.  Sometimes it providentially does, but it really is an act of God.

In the end I think it's all about how the little things add together to make the bigger picture.  Nonetheless, I'm an adult, I've got it worked out right?  Not.  The word "adult" really is intimidating, and I'm not entirely comfortable labeling myself with it, though technically I'm already years past legally qualifying for the honor. Will it make sense with more time?  Maybe, but not time alone.  Maybe I just haven't had my epiphany yet, but still, life goes on.  I can't just stop because my personal life hasn't been sorted out, I have to do it on the fly. How do I do that?  Well, one thing I realize more as I grow older is the enormity of the extent of things I can't do.  More and more, I realize that while I'm bumbling about hoping to serndipidously stumble upon the right answer, there's someone I know that's got it all figured out already, I just have to ask.  So, I just need to trust Him (the guy with the right answers) and trust His answers, and live accordingly.  Things will work out in the end.  He's got it figured out.

Not enough...

I find it intriguing that we often complain we don't have enough of things.  Maybe it's a sign of the modern era of discontentment.  I mean, we always say, "Grass is always greener on the other side."  Though I'm not here to really talk about how we are a very instant-gratification generation, how we have to have things now.  I'm in a sort of contemplative mood, I suppose, so now I'm going to do some contemplative ranting.  So here goes... I don't believe the statement, "I don't have enough time..."  This is something that's a little difficult for me to articulate, but it's something that I frankly don't believe is really the case a lot of times when people say it.  How should I put this?

Time, I think is like money.  The primary difference is that everyone has a fixed amount whereas our earning potential has some flexibility.  There are things we need to spend our money on; food, clothing, rent, bills, etc...  What money we have remaining we can spend on the remaining things that we want or in some cases to improve on the niceties of such things we spend our money on.  Likewise, we have things we ought to spend our time on; work (be it vocation or school), family, sleep (seriously, we do), etc...  We were given 24 hours in a day for a reason, I'm sure that it's not impossible to get by with just that amount, otherwise we'd have more.  I think I'm sort of at a loss as to where exactly I was going with this...

It's basically along these lines, we spend on what we find to be important.  Generally, we spend in sequence of descending importance, the things that are important get first priority, as our resources are limited, it's uncertain as to when we're going to run out at any given point in time, thus it's only natural that we want to get the most important things out of the way first.  So I guess the first point would be to really take time to recognize what you're spending (time and money) on.  Maybe I'm just overly-sensitive, but this I feel becomes extraordinarily important especially when it comes to relating with other people.  I suppose I wouldn't really think of things this way if I didn't first come up with this perspective on spending, so I only really have myself to blame.

In terms of relationships, we can spend both money and time as well.  Generally, spending a ton of money I don't think works very well.  Thus, I think more indicative of how seriously a person takes a relationship is the time spent "invested" into the relationship.  Naturally, there are things we absolutely have to spend our time on, but I think too often we blur the lines between need and want.  Simply put, since we only have 24 hours to the day, at some point in time, something is going to have to give.  Oftentimes people forgo meals or sleep in order to do the things they find to be important.  What I'm ultimately saying is that we MAKE time for what's important.  Isn't that how we do things already?  We allocate a certain degree of relative importance to our tasks on hand and then accordingly allocate the time we have available appropriately.  While we may not find something as mundane as meeting and catching up with a friend to be "unimportant" it certainly would fall low on a scale of relative importance.  Thus the question falls back to one of perspective.  We measure not only tasks but also hobbies and even relationships and determine what things are worth spending on.

I suppose the direction I'm going here is a call to introspection, figuring out what really is important.  We certainly say a lot of things but is it true?  Think about it this way, in the event of a schedule conflict, what takes precedence?  While the whole process may be very similar to asking yourself in a schedule conflict, which you would rather do, the difference is there.  What takes precedence really is a mirror of what you hold to be important.  As calloused as it may sound, if, in the event of a schedule conflict, I found that going to open gym volleyball was more important than meeting my friend for dinner, then the reality of the situation is that I find volleyball to be more important than that dinner date.  This isn't to say that I can't schedule things around when I play volleyball (dinner included), but when push comes to shove something has to give.  When I cannot accommodate a friend who really wants to meet but can only do so on a specific date, then in some sense, I have put whatever it is I'm doing (volleyball, work, school, other friends, etc...) in front of that friend in terms of importance.  We make time for what's important, that's how things are.  I understand that we all weigh the varying factors of life differently, some of us think work is more important, some of us friends, some of us school, etc...  My thing is this, just take an inventory now and figure out what's important and if that's what you want to be important.  When I don't have "enough time" for something, I think it ultimately means this: it's not important enough.

The Remarkable Jading Effect of Time

Hm... Was the title a little too cynical? I dunno, it's just something I've been thinking about. It's kind of sad that I haven't realized it until now, but have you noticed that things get less interesting as time passes? I know I've heard it before, the more I do things the more commonplace they become and they lose their initial appeal, maybe that's it. I used to always want to go to McDonald's and my mom would say how if I had too much McDonald's I'd get sick of it. I didn't really believe her of course, but then, I didn't have McDonald's everyday either. Nonetheless, it's interesting how remarkably unappealing the mundane and routine become once they become mundane and routine. It's weird.

This is something that I find happening in life, and more specifically through my personal walk of faith. It's rather ironic, but what was once construed as spiritual fervor is now viewed with a rather cynical perspective. Everything that I once was passionate about has become cliched, and I wish it weren't so. A lot of times I go back to those cliched attitudes and sayings, and I sometimes cringe at how cliched it is, but also, I remember, how when it wasn't so. It's a difficult battle, and one that I think we need to be aware of. Time jades, we should realize that. I don't know if it's a by-product of the cynicism in our society or if it's the natural degeneration of man, but it happens. There's an opening line to a song that I've been listening to lately, and it goes like thus, "Can I look past the cliches?" Well, can I?

I suppose this has been a little on the depressing side, so I suppose I'll try to put a more positive perspective on this. I believe that in understanding this it's a calling to bring us back to the simplicity of children, where there are no cliches. Just because it's cliched doesn't make it wrong. Just overused, but we always have to have that fresh perspective, that kid constantly craving the simple things. I've noticed most of it comes back to a matter of perspective. As life progresses the wonder comes out of things little by little, but I believe with the proper perspective, things can be better.