First published in September 2008 in The Phnom Penh Post as part of the Voice of Justice columns. One and one-half years since the publication of this article, Emma continues to flower into a beautiful little girl with personality, rhythm and grace - a product of great parenting, nurturing environment and opportunities. We owe our children and the new generation opportunities and a nurturing environment for them to realize their human potential.
A nurturing environment to replace the current ugly environment -- of vulgarity, deceit, pettiness, women-hating, self-loathing and divisiveness -- does not come by without reflection and sacrifices from each of us wherever we may find ourselves, with a narrow or wide sphere of influence. And I cannot emphasize enough the need for each of us to READ, READ, READ and READ some more...this is a habit that should never leave us even if we're 90 years old as we should never stop learning and should be teachable at any age!
HABITS AND SACRIFICES
My niece, Emma, who is fifteen-months old and lives in Irvine, California, has been attending music class. It's impossible to know fully the impact that music will have on her life, but already her face lights up every time she hears music and moves and grooves to the tunes confidently, playfully, in perfect rhythm and style. In seeing Emma dance, I am reminded of Tiger Woods who as a toddler putted golf balls every day with his father and the excellence of the Olympians achieved through discipline and habits instilled at tender ages.
The wisdom of millennia back continues to resonate: Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.
The problem with habits is that the good ones require intentionality, discipline, patience and hard work while the bad ones come only too naturally.
What are the admirable habits you as a parent, we as a society – intentionally, purposefully, sacrificially – are instilling in our children and young people? Alternatively, what are the dark habits you as a parent, we as a society are encouraging and permitting through carelessness, apathy and lack of vision?
If we are wise and visionary, we must be intentional and purposeful in our living by forming life-enriching habits in ourselves and our children. We are a generation, post-Khmer Rouge, uniquely cast with an opportunity and a burden: Shall we squander the lessons of the past and let our parents and family die in vain?
Or, shall we live sacrificially and meaningfully for change, for transformation – from violence to peace, hatred to love, vulgarity to decency, fear to courage, arrogance to humility, mediocrity to excellence, pettiness to largeness of heart, envy to praise, folly to wisdom, inanity to knowledge, vacillation to perseverance, apathy to passion, falsehood to truth, humiliation to dignity/nobility – in order that our children may move away from this present darkness to build a brighter future and join the world community of the 21st century?
Shall we merely exist, or shall we LIVE and live passionately by giving the new generation strong shoulders to stand on, a firm foundation from which to build for globalized, 21st century living?
The answer cannot be the current status quo. It must be the latter; we must live sacrificially; we must live intentionally and passionately with shrewd single-mindedness for peace, love, decency, courage, humility, excellence, generosity, nobility, wisdom, knowledge and truth -all these words we throw around as good and true.
However, when I look around our society, I shudder at what I see and hear being instilled and formed in our young people. I see elementary school students bribing their way through schools, through their young life – encouraged and applauded by the parents and our leaders, very much comfortably at ease with corruption as a way of life.
I see young children in my neighborhood scavenging for rubbish when they should be attending school, sniffing glue to numb their existence. I see a void of leadership at all levels of society, beginning with us as civic leaders. I see indecency and hear vulgarity from us, about us.
What I do not see often enough is children reading, adults reading, parents parenting, leaders leading. What I hear is lip service to these values; what I do not see is the acting out of these values.
These words of nobility, goodness, peace etc. are only words, empty rhetoric if they are not habitually, incrementally instilled and developed in each one of us. We cannot do otherwise; we cannot afford anything else. Phrases such as "proud to be born Khmer" ring hollow if we continue to cheat, kill and lie to and about each other.
A long time ago, I learned that there is no short cut to life. In a bling-bling culture, where only the surface matters, where things are not what they seem, we are fooling ourselves to think we can exist as we are now and acquire good habits and virtues without discipline, without efforts, without education, without hard work, without opposition.
We must know our history, world history. We must be better readers of the patterns of life spanning the years and events of these histories. If we are at all paying attention, we would know that anything of value and meaning must be paid for in real terms. We value dignity? Fight for it. Earn it. We value freedom? Fight for it. Earn it. Apartheid did not end in South Africa without decades of struggle, costing lives and 27 years of imprisonment for Nelson Mandela. Think Gandhi and his struggle for independence from British imperialism and what it cost him and his countrymen. Barack Obama is standing on the shoulders of giants who came before him and paved the way for his historic presidential candidacy; think Martin Luther King, Jr. and decades of the civil rights movement.
What are the sacrifices we are making for our children? What are the habits we are intentionally living and imparting to prepare for a more prosperous present and future? What are the character-forming habits we would like to see more in ourselves and in future generations? What are we doing to actualize them from empty rhetoric?
I agree with Dr. Mark Strom – my new favorite author – that the answer to these habits and sacrifices which allow us to "live well" is not magical but practical. I also agree with him on four little sayings as good reminders and a place to start: take care in little things; big door swing on little hinges; faithful in little things, faithful in big things; and leave people better than you found them.
And always, READ.
Theary C. SENG, former director of Center for Social Development (March 2006—July 2009), founded the Center for Justice & Reconciliation (www.cjr-cambodia.org) and is currently writing her second book, under a grant, amidst her speaking engagements.
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