Inner Equilibrium

I believe everyone in on the face of earth is trying to find the so called peace while living in this fast paced world. I see peace as an abstract feeling of inner equilibrium. Peace is like sitting in a garden listening to sounds of flowing water with no negative emotions on your mind. But this calming and a lack of threat feeling is slowly diminishing within the fast pace society. We all want to establish a calming inner equilibrium, by working on ourselves, exposing ourselves to the optimal environments, coming up with rules in morality that we follow to avoid guilt. But is peace really reachable when the values of the society change towards the materialistic, the constant simulation of internet, and social media to escape the temporary of real life problems?

Often I find myself going through a smooth week, with accomplishments at work, finishing all errands on time, great conversations with friends, like my life is going great. The suddenly Boom! A clogged sink, and Boom! work gets out of hand, and Boom! a friend is upset for my absence of some social outing. By then the inner peace is thrown off balance, and the mental mindset is back to coping with the negative emotions while learning to appreciate life at the same time.

But what if this feeling of having small issues in my life waiting to be solved and/or tolerated is actually the inner equilibrium. What if the percentage of life is actually spent more on taking care of small raising problems than on enjoying the zero-stress occasions? One of the life goal that I learned as the life years build up, is that one develops more toleration for the miscellaneous life problems that comes and goes. Problems with water bills, banks, or taxes comes and goes, and eventually we will all see them as errands to do as oppose to life-threatening issues. Such inner equilibrium is established through years and years of toleration, instead of through the competition of all life's issues at one time.

Frugal habits vs Poor conditions

Without a doubt parents want their kids to excel, and to be good, responsible human beings. There are countless research centered around the development of kids' values, characteristics, morals, etc. Parents pour money into education and extracurriculars for their kids as if such endeavors garentee the constitution of a socially desired individuals. However, parents can attempt to develop one desireable characteristics within a child but mistakenly yielding something...not so desirable. There is a fine line between parents desire to emphasizing frugalness and ending up giving the child an impression of being poor.

Growing up, I saw many middle class families, either in the states or in other countries, highlighting the importance of saving money and spending only on what is absolutely necessary. Out of many other responsibilities a newly constituted familiy might have, mortgage, bills, car insurance costs, etc, it is easy to shut down a child's request for candies or toys. But think about the psychological effect it might have on the child. With his or her own desire inconstantly denied, but with adequate amount of love and attention, the inconstantcy of care leads the child to conclude that the family is financially limited.

Training a child to be frugal diminishes the likelihood of future financial issues. Giving the child an image of poor family background comes with some consequences. For one, being raised from a poor family leads to insecurity, a reluctance to express the inner desire due to the frequency rejections while young, and a limitation to predict actual values of materialistic things. Also, in terms of interacting with others, being raised from a poor family tend to pay more attention on the financial ability of other children's families, hence factor this into basis of friendship. Lastly, the child's desire pursue its own interests that are financially costly such as traveling would be suppressed due to the child's concern for parents' opinions. This prevents the child's creativity, and the ability to exercise confidence and assertion.

So how are you subconsciously effecting your kids?