Who Are You Really? Who and What Have You Been Living For?

When you were young, did you live for your parents?

If you live in a Chinese family, like I am, or in a typical Asian family, you might have done so.

Did you listen to your parents and were always busy studying to make sure you score those A's?

Did your parents keep telling how important it is to go to university and you tell yourself you got to make it?

Did you have to do well in studies so that your parents would have enough 'face' to show to your relatives?

Did you have to endure slapping and beating all the way till adulthood and being told you couldn't and shouldn't retaliate because the perpetrator was your mother?

Did you have to be an obedient kid and go home every day to do housework because your mother told you to?

Did you try very hard to please your mother but you always did not get any recognition?

Were you always not good enough for your parents even though you have tried hard and tried many times to improve?

I would answer 'Yes' to all those questions above.

As the elder of two children, I felt I had to do well to improve the living conditions of my family. I learn to do housework, cooking, studies, extra-curriculum activities very well. I sacrificed all the idle time that I had, and even social life. All because I wanted my mother to be proud of me. But my mother couldn't remember that I had contributed to the household at all.

Although I don't feel a strong emotion now, I was very devastated for a time back then. What was I sacrificing for? Who was I doing it for? I was lost for a while. I kept asking myself what was I born for? What is my mission here? Why didn't the universal god just take my life? Why must I suffer for nothing? Why did I have to miss out so much in life just to hear my mother say, "I forget that you have ever helped in the house"?

I read self-help books. I read autobiographies and biographies. I read history. I went from one success seminar to another one, taking down detailed notes of what each speaker had to say about being successful. I wanted to find myself back. After about five or six years, I seemed to know myself better and that was why blog was born. Because I have gone through similar sufferings as many others, I feel I am in a very good position to understand what you are going through. I also introspect myself to see what I'm good at and passionate about. And I'm very happy to tell you I have clarified what I want to do for the rest of my life.

What have you been living for? Have you found the real you?

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