Today, the primary concern of every parent is to ensure a decent job for their kids. There is no yardstick to measure decency. However, most parents consider their lifestyle the minimum standard and want their kids to have the same or more. Most parents are "convinced" that happiness has a direct correlation with money. They feel their kids would remain happy if they had the job that satisfies those "minimum standards".
Some parents have not achieved that "minimum standard" but see others around and develop a desire that their kids to get the same. They remain in awe of those "achievers" and keep motivating their kids to become "achievers". Some parents are themselves "achievers" and want their kids to follow in their footsteps. Either way, both types of parents tend to focus on "lifestyle," ignoring "life" itself. "Life" is the sum total of experiences we have. There is no doubt that money helps us have a wide variety of experiences. If we have money, we can buy the home we desire, travel to the country we want to go to, have cars and bikes that we like to ride, and have food in a restaurant of our choice. However, all these things constitute just a very minuscule portion of life. "Life" is all about exploration in the domain of the unknown. We may examine the life of any person who has lived a fulfilled life, and money would have played the least role.
Was the life of Einstein fulfilling because he had a lot of money? Does anybody talk about the properties of Einstein? Was the life of Buddha fulfilling because of the money he had? In fact, he left his palace to understand the meaning of life. Was the life of Mahatma Gandhi fulfilling because of his wealth? In fact, Mahatma left all the comforts to fight for the freedom of India. Life does not become fulfilling by repeated doses of the same comforts and luxuries; rather, it becomes meaningful when we enter into the domain of the unknown and explore. Life is like Columbus and Vasco de Gama would be more fulfilling than the sailors sailing on luxury ships.
The biggest injustice we do to our kids is by developing a tunnel view by repeatedly telling them the significance of money in our lives, and by making them so fearful. They drop their dreams to explore due to this fear. They do not study the subjects for the love of the subjects; rather, they see education just as a tool to get a good job. That's why they get so tired of studies that by the time they become engineers and doctors, they develop a sort of animosity towards the studies and never ever open a book in the rest of their lives. That deprives them of the entire happiness of exploring the domain of the unknown. We, as parents. become so overprotective that we take away the entire fun of exploration from our kids by forcing them to walk on the dotted lines, and the worst part is that we too don't know the rationale behind those stupid instructions. Parents just end up passing on their own fears to the kids.
Awareness makes a difference. If parents could somehow become aware of their own lives and experiences, they would realize that while walking on the dotted lines may create a sense of safety, life is inherently unpredictable, and true safety is unattainable. In fact, the more we walk on the dotted lines, the more we cultivate a fear of the unknown, having lost our capacity for awareness. Living robotically resembles wasting the infinite possibilities life has to offer. Why would we want to turn our children into robots? Why don't we encourage them to explore their passions? What’s the harm in following their passion with limited resources? They will find happiness in the process instead of seeking opportunities to boast about their wealth to fill their inner hollowness. I believe the best contribution parents can make is to share their experiences truthfully. They should be open to questioning. They must engage in dialogue rather than monologue. They should convey to their children that the immense wealth of this world is worthless without fulfilling relationships, without pursuing our passions, and without exploring the unknown. This approach will foster an awareness of life’s realities in children and empower them to make decisions that lead to a fulfilling life.
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