My father, the man that has been my biggest challenge in my life, is the person that always gets me confused and frustrated. He is the typical Asian parents that wants his kids to be number one in school, excellency in extracurriculars, perfect courtesy and absolute obey from his children under his rule. He is the type of parents that you will see in a restaurant that tell his kids not to talk nor join adult’s conversation when adult are talking. It was never new to me, but I was never like that. I speak what’s on my mind when I feel the need to, and my opinion usually didn’t go with his. So whenever anyone complement how independent and mature I am compared to peers of my age, I am always lowkey thinking that
“ I gain my skills and independency from all these years of arguments with my father, thanks to that.”
While he is the strict and seemingly stubborn parents you might think, he is also the parents that insisted in sending me to American School when everyone disagrees; he is the person that demands his child to write him a report in how they will spend their winter break; he is the parent that brings children to movie in an exam week; he is the parent that is willing to spend thousands of dollars for his child to attend counseling session for entrepreneurship (which end up really useless). The reason why he gets me confuse is that he is very ambitious about what his child’s potential can perform. However, at the same time, he criticizes every single mistakes his child made and disbelieve in goals his child wants to achieved. My sister had previously tried to persuade me (several times) in “stop trying” to deliver my message to dad, because she knew it never works. But my stubbornness, or should I say, my persistence drives me forward in arguing with him after all these years.
I have many interests and activities I wanted to participate in. But after all these arguments with my father, I usually can’t gets his support nor able to continue my pursue. He is the inhibitor for me to achieve something I want to. He will use all the past experiences he had to persuade me how my action will only leads to failure, or he sees no potential value in things I want to do. But it was okay, it was never a problem for me to find another project or activity I crave to do because I never ran out of ideas for things I want to do. Nevertheless, he is my biggest obstacle/ challenge for me before getting access to whatever thing I wanted to do.
The reason why I am writing all this is because I did the argument thing with my dad all over again tonight. I am a person who pursue practicality when it comes to finding solution or answer for problems. So I decided that I am going to tried to get an internship. My problem is that I feel vacant when I am not doing a project beside my academic, so I always turn for dad not because he gives me best advices but because he is my network to leverage whatever I want to do. From econ, I learn to utilize whatever resource I have in hand to create maximum value. My dad is my resource, and I know I can utilize my potential and my ambition if I was able to persuade my resource to assist me in creating my maximum value. Despite how irritating or disgraceful our conversation can be, I decided to talk to him knowing that he probably doesn’t listen but I will never give up. Tonight, he criticizes how bad I am in persisting things I wanted to do, said that I was a quitter. But I never was. Being the one last family member remaining in arguing with him, fighting for my own belief and ideas, I was the one last man standing. I never quit trying to communicate with him, and I persevere despite how harsh the situation can be. Not only because I know this is training me to be a better communicator and thinker, but also a life lesson that I can never escape learning- how to talk in a language of a person that is hard to communicate.
I am writing this tonight is because I know I am trying. I will never quit speaking up for my opinions until one day I finally get what I want. I will never stop fighting for my values until the day I am free from his complete dominance. When the day come, that will be the day, where I am no more cage by my father for my pursuit of dreams.
Goodnight.
