How to be a good person

If there is one lesson I’m most proud of that my family has taught me successfully, then it is the lesson of being a good person. 

When I was small, I thought a good life is like the life of Bill Gates or the country’s Prime Minister. At the age of six, I was lying on the bed inside a tiny flat while my parents went to work all day, staring at the ceiling and dreaming of the day I became the PM or the richest person in the world. Of course, as I grew up, I understood those are not exactly feasible. But I carried that ambitious personality into everything I did. I studied so hard, top of the class and rarely tolerated a B. Everyone was happy about that and as a kid, I was also satisfied. 

During my years as a teenager, as most kids at that age, I did not particularly like my parents. I believed that they cared about me just because I was a great student, making them proud on parents’ days at school. Resentment and fear were the main emotions I had back then. I did not communicate much with my parents. I also did not want to make friends at school. I acted like I needed no one and I was happy on my own. Now when reflecting on that, perhaps I was just really scared of being abandoned. I didn’t want to form a new relationship just to eventually have them leaving me, or me leaving them. As a Psychology student, I can now well self-diagnose that this symptom came from an adverse childhood experience (ACE). There is a teacher who once told me that, each person is like a onion. And to discover why they are as they are right now, we need to peel each layer of their life experiences, until we reach their very core.

My parents started their business when they had me. The company is now 20 years old. And so am I. We are siblings. We are perhaps even twins. Their business has become part of my identity, so much that in my stories, usually we encountered the phrase “my parents’ business”. It is not that I love the company so much or I desperately want to inherit it. But, the birth of the company did bring into my life a lot of things to ponder on. A lot of lessons, I admit. 

The first lesson it taught me was about the pain of separation. My parents left me to my grandparents, my mom’s parents, when I was still months-old. The memory of a baby did not record much dramatic feelings of course, so that pain I mentioned is not about this first “goodbye”. The first five years of my life, however, were all about my grandmother and the little town we were in. Those days were peaceful and precious and I loved grandma dearly. She worked so hard to bring me up; she sang me to sleep; we traveled together; she picked me up from nursery school. She taught me about love, to be kind to everyone, and don’t keep hatred. She was all my life. That small town was all my childhood, poor and happier than ever. And so, when my parents suddenly took me to the city where they worked when I turned six, we spent days crying and were never prepared for separation. The city was noisy and lively and not so pretty. My parents were wrestling to keep their business alive and we moved so much that I couldn’t count how many houses I lived through. That’s why whenever I visited my grandparents’ house, I cried so much but still had to come back to the city for another Monday. This same scene, saying goodbye, tears, hugs, couldn’t-leaves, was like a never-ending scene cut from a black-and-white film roll. It lingered in my mind for years and perhaps never left. I think I only stopped crying when I turned 15. It took almost a decade to deal with those surface-level symptoms. 

But this is not where I paint my parents a villain. They are not for me now. They are just my parents. If anything better, my friends. You know what, it is actually good to try look at our parents as themselves, two individuals just like me and you, and realise that they are normal people with dreams, lives, ambitions, flaws, and favourable traits. I guess I couldn’t say something like this a few years ago. There was nothing like a breakthrough on my psychological healing journey. If there was a remedy, it might be Time. My writing coach told me this and I didn’t believe back then, but now I do. “Things take time. Time will do the magic.” It turned out quite true. Time healed my relationship with my parents. Of course, it took efforts and struggles as well. Just five years ago, my dad wanted to kick me out of the house after I swore at him and told him that he was a horrible father and husband. And I told my mom the only thing she could give me is her money. I believe unconsciously, I wanted to take revenge. Because how could they be so harsh with me and demand me to be perfect in everything I did, while giving me zero care and negative level of empathy and understanding? Yes, I was horrible. We were arguing a lot. But I’m happy that we did. Because otherwise, there was no way our relationship could get out of that story when I was six. It would forever remain in my mind that “they left me then they took me back while abandoning what I considered my life”. A lot of the times, I assume, people fight before they can forgive.

I am now twenty. And I admit I’m quite proud of this fact. Actually I am proud of every single age I have been through, so much that I have created “boxes” for every single of them on my laptop since I was 16. I have saved five boxes in total and will continue have more of those, I hope. And each year, I named those boxes differently. Let me see, last year’s box was “lastyearasateen”, it is quite obvious isn’t it? I was 19 and it was the last time my age included the “teen” element. The one at 16 was “a memory collector”, I always imagined myself as someone who collected life memories back then (probably even now), always busy writing something or taking pictures of even a grasshopper. Most of the time I do believe my memory works really well, ever since I was very small. A lot of life events I can remember clearly no matter how long time has passed. Or it’s simply because I actively tried to remember them all. 

You see, when we are no longer a “teen”, certain things change. I now truly understand how hard it is to run a business. This is not because I studied a Business textbook and memorised how many things a business person had to do. The understanding came quite naturally. When I was 11 or 12, my parents gave me some small tasks to do in the warehouse. There were customer orders and I needed to find the correct products using the code they gave me. I spent a lot of time in their office as well and usually it was such a noisy place. The accountants share the same area with the inventory staff and the delivery people. Along time, things got better. The warehouse has fans and areas for the employees to rest. There is no more yelling and swearing. The office has nice ACs. Customers wait patiently for their orders to get done. New deals came. And my parents have became better, calmer, listen more, and I guess, just kinder. I was surprised when having chats with my parents this summer and in a moment, I realised they have also grown up, on their own journey. Remembering about those days when they were in their 20s, arguing over the smallest things and feeling anxious about every single matter on earth, I’m happy for them. Truly.

The business was perhaps never their dream from the start. My mom always told me she wanted to be a teacher, and hoped I would become a doctor. The business was how they tried to earn a living. And somehow, it ended up as their life-long purpose. In July this year, when I called my dad on an afternoon feeling exhausted and so lost with all my future plans and dreams, for the first time I heard my dad admit he love what he has been doing. Probably not so much at the beginning because it was simply so challenging. But the company has not only taught him how to be a businessman. It taught him how to be a good person, as each year passes by, he learned and tried and did not give up. “Sometimes, it’s all you need. Not so much talent. But passion and commitment. So go out there and find out what you love.”

And never stop desiring to be kind. To not forget but please, forgive. Try to understand the struggles each person is going through. We all have a story and a journey to fight through. The purpose you carry is what guide you to a good life and be a good person. Maybe, in our 20s, that purpose is not exactly concrete and sometimes confusing. But trust me, as long as you stick to it, the days to come will get better. 

BY LYNN NG.