己所不欲，无施于人
ji suo bu yu, wu shi yu rent
I came across this Confucian quote many many eons back, when I was doing Confucian Ethics in Chinese as a 'O' Level subject. Despite so many other Confucian quotes that we need to understand, memorise and apply, this is the one that really stood out for me.
Loosely translated, it means "Do not do unto others what you want not unto yourself"
A very simple yet very hard to actualize quote. Why? Cos it involves tons of empathy, understanding and insights. It bespoke of a mature person, with an understanding of himself/herself and with a clear view of the world around. To me, if I could really practise what this preaches only then I feel that I am REALLY TRULY an adult.
In layman terms, what does this quote mean to me?
It meant not flying off the handle even when all my systems' alarms are ringing with the requiste red lights spinning furiously. It meant to be able to calmly assess and manage my feelings and not be swayed by emotions. Keep calm and go on!
It meant not taking my temper out on another innocent who may be at the wrong place, at the wrong time. I am so so so guilty of these, especially when one kid made me tear my hair, its easy to just take it out on the next kid who happen to innocently come along :(
It meant not bringing frustrations home from work and in effect stressed everyone out. Guilty as charged!
As my kiddos grow and face different challenges, I find myself repeating this mantra often. Hmm if repeating it can help them remember, my kiddos would provably have these words ENGRAVED already :p
A familiar scene will be one whereby the child is unwilling to do her share of the chores and unavoidably, the famous question "Why me, ?" will come. A very typical example will be throwing the rubbish. My gals will take turns to do this every morning yet a typical grouse will be "Why must I throw ALL the rubbish? I only threw a small piece of tissue!" I usually answer this with another question of my own complete with the eye-rolling. "Yes, why do I wash your dirty clothes?", "Why do I cook for you?" Luckily this method usually will stop them in their tracks and no more will be uttered. Often, the scene that floods up to my mind at this point in time will be how ridiculous we will look if we had to sit down and sift through which rubbish belongs to who?!!!
As my firstborn slowly but surely stroll onto the horrendous realm of teenager, words like "I dont care", "not my problem" have started to feature. I know its hard to make her understand why she should care and that its her problem too! I can only hope that my constant repeats of examples will somehow wriggle its way through that skull!
How about you? Do you have an about-teenager that is starting to sprout those favourite words? Do share especially on how you can help to re-direct that self-righteousness somewhere else where it belong.
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