The Wind That Bends the Bamboo
It is said that too much blessings can be a curse. Not easy to comprehend, but it’s likely true. We’ve seen too much comfort leading to weakness or, at least, less tolerance to discomfort.
The real world is not a bed of roses. We win some and lose some. Curiously, some losses are actually meant to be preparations for victories.
A lady friend once related to me how difficult it was for her to be acting cordially towards her husband’s children with another woman during a chance meeting. I did not feel pity for my friend. Instead, I admired her. I was proud of the sense of grace and poise she showed, so proud that it felt like my own personal achievement as well.
It’s understandable what great pain my friend must have felt to be hugging the symbols of her husband’s infidelity. But I am amazed the more by the surfacing of her goodwill at a time when she might have shown hostility. Such goodness, I believe, is at the core of our shared humanity as human beings.
It delights my heart to realize the great potential for goodness we all have – if we try to be. But I know, too, that such composure as my friend had shown doesn’t just happen. While we are all endowed with the same capacity, it needs proper nurturing to make it blossom and actually available for the tapping.
Hurt as she certainly was, my friend was able to stand that crucial test of her character. You might say she was just feigning it. But for you to be able to act something out effectively, you need to feel it in your heart. So, just the same, good intention was there at the root of the act; spontaneously at that, for she had no time to emotionally prepare herself.
This friend of mine swears to the great influence on her by her deceased father. He always emphasized compassion, goodwill and patience. The whole family was lavished with his love such that, likely, whatever material lack they had then did not matter much. He tried to be the best example of the things he taught his children.
For sure, the father’s life wasn’t at all that easy. He must have had struggles, and defeats and triumphs, like we all have. The one thing with him, it seems, is that he faced every life challenge as if it was an opportunity to prove his humanity. I didn’t personally know the man, except in the way I know his daughter. I am convinced he was a good man.
Today we are surrounding our kids with luxuries that we never knew of in our own youth. Our modern education has taught us that personality is a creature of the environment, and so we try to pamper our children with commodious and comfortable conditions, so they may develop fully. Inadvertently, we are trying to make life so easy for the young ones.
Material provisions are good to give – but up to a limit. Parental love means so much more than giving the kids whatever they ask for. The dichotomy of parenthood includes a hand that strokes and a hand that strikes.
Too much comfort and convenience and frills can deflect the growing child’s attention from the real secret to a full life. Young people might learn to expect that they can simply find life, pick it up, and go on their way. That is not true.
We never find life – we create it. So much so, parents cannot live life for their children. Often the best teacher a person can have is a difficult environment to awaken the courageous drive and endurance of his slumbering soul.
The wind that bends the bamboo when it blows makes the plant more pliant. Each blow prepares the bamboo for the storms to come. It works the same way with people. And those who are consistently able to stand adversities become an inspiration to others who come to know of their example.