A great parent

Parents aren't lucky if their children are born smart. Now I'm not a parent (yet!), so my views may only be of so much value. But I used to think that children were always born lucky or smart, and that its in a parents destiny to either have a smart child or a weak one. While that may not be completely wrong either, it is a huge responsibility of a parent to decide what their child turns out to be.

And that's exactly where she excels. She is a single mom of 3 kids, and one of her kids (Ben) suffers from autism. I'm not sure how I would have handled or responded to such a situation, but her kids are exactly where they need to be today. She has a fierce determination to help them excel - all 3 of them. She knows their strengths and weaknesses and keeps harnessing whatever strengths they have to overcome anything that is lacking in them. I see her passion in bringing them up in every little thing in her home, from the board games uses to have fun with her kids (and in the process train them!), to the way she admonishes even Ben when she needs to.

I'm glad we crossed paths in life. Before meeting her family, I think I would have spent time in self-pity if I had such a kid. Not anymore. Because she has showed me that in the respect of bringing up kids, there is no such thing called destiny. Parents aren't lucky if their children are born smart. Children are lucky if they have smart parents!

70 yrs

70 yrs... thats a life time. You start working at 22, work on till 50, maybe 60. So thats around 40 yrs spent earning your bread. Both before and after those 40 yrs, for the most part, someone else earns it for you... But what makes those 40 yrs special? Wouldnt mind giving the biggest part of your life a thought now, would you? There's probably no single more influencing factor than - the people you work with.

And that realisation dawned on me when a friend at work decided to call it quits. When you spend atleast 8 hours a day at work, friends become family. And its those people that make all the difference. It those people that give you a reason, a meaning and a purpose to look forward to work each day. Its hard to let go of someone like that, when you would have, at times, imagined working together for a lifetime. Imagine losing a family member!

I sometimes dread the day I'd leave for another place to work at. I wonder if I'll be able to get the same kind of friends, the same atmosphere, the same vibe. But life's a journey, and you have to keep moving. So either your friends move on, or you - its inevitable - and its just a question of who's first.

70 yrs. Come to think of it, there's no single person that you're around from start to finish. Friends change, family settings change - people keep changing. There's only 1 constant in 70 yrs of your life on earth - God.