Sunday, June 28, 2009

Let Go

I hope I remember this 18 years from now.

I believe that the one job parents have is to teach their children how to be self-sufficient. If you can do that well, then you have succeeded. You teach them the difference between right and wrong, you enable them to learn about the world and its ways. You teach them the simple skills and send them off to learn about the more complicated skills. You expand their minds.

Then you let them go and hope that they make wise decisions.

The letting go part was the step my mom wasn't the best at. She was wonderful at making sure that I got the best education possible. She made sure I had an innate sense of what's right vs. what's not. But she wasn't able to let me go make my own decisions, to be confident that I would be able to handle those tough choices on my own. The thing is, if you do your job well as a parent, then you need to have the confidence in your abilities. You need to let go.

I woke up thinking of this parallel with the religious ones of the world. The thing is, if you believe that God created you, that's fine. But I think that you should also recognize that maybe God created you, then left you on this earth to make your own decisions. One thing I absolutely abhor are those who refuse to help themselves because they think that God will take care of it all. I think the whole point of the human race is to just live and let live. Just like a parent would like his child to succeed on his own, maybe God as a creator would like you, as a member of the human race to do it on your own, instead of calling out his name every five minutes.

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