The schools tell the students how great the parents are in sacrificing and providing everything to their children. The parents are happy not only for the flattering but mainly for the potential benefits from educating the students to reciprocate. Unfortunately, the students start to think that the parents have the responsibility to sacrifice and provide everything to them, and start to demand for the rights to get more from the parents as if it is a debt. And the parents start to think that they are obligated to repay the “debt” and they feel guilty if they can’t meet the “responsibility”. They would feel fear that the children would hate them and leave them when they are old. The vicious cycle continues. When the children grow up and become parents, they experience the same fear, obligation, and guilt (F.O.G.). This is another danger of promoting compassion and righteousness. If the schools and the parents were not greedy for reciprocation, they wouldn’t tell the students how precious (a.k.a. rare) is the sacrifices and generosity of the parents. If those things are not promoted, parents would love their children as naturally as the Nature intended. Children would appreciate the love and not demand for more. The natural filial piety and unconditional-love will be restored (绝仁弃义，民复孝慈).
Everybody must learn to be plain and ingenuous. Don’t try to be clever in manipulating others. Everybody must learn to have little selfishness and desire. Selfishness is not wrong but too much of it can kill you and other people. Desire for honors (success, wealth, fame), and desire to meddle with the lives of others (children, spouse, neighbors, society) must be kept to minimum. Stop learning to become clever. The best thing to learn is not unlimited knowledge but learning the Dao to have no worry. We will have no worry when there is nothing else that we cannot let go, including our bodies. (见素抱朴；少私寡欲；绝学无忧。)
Religion is a way of life for the improvement of oneself. It should not be used as a tool for extortion and victimizing the believers (i.e. no one should be bullied for not obeying the religious “authority”). Compassion is a kind of spirituality for individual to practice and improve himself, for his own happiness. The same goes for gratitude. You don’t have any obligation to be grateful to anyone. But you can choose to be grateful to someone if it makes you happy. Gratitude requires emotional intelligence and it takes mental toughness and discipline. Compared with those who dwell on daily hassles, people who exercise giving thanks more regularly are found to have less complaints of annoyance and feel better about their lives overall. They also feel more loving, forgiving, joyful, enthusiastic, and optimistic about their futures, while their family and friends find them happier and are more pleasant to be around.
The schools also teach the students to have responsibility. You are told that you have certain responsibilities to your family, community, and country. Children must be responsible to their parents in doing their chores diligently, and employees must be responsible to their employers in doing their jobs diligently. The fact is, you are only responsible to yourself. You are answerable to someone only if you want something from someone. Children want loves from the parents, and parents want loves from the children. Employees want money and promotion from employers, and employers want employees to make money for them. In other words, the so-called “responsibility” is actually a contract you enter into. You do not naturally have any responsibility to anyone but yourself. If you don’t desire to get anything in return, you have no responsibility whatsoever. Although some people like to impose all kinds of responsibilities on your shoulder, you don’t have to listen to them and impose the unnecessary responsibilities on yourself. Of course, we all want something; the more we want, i.e. we are hungry, the more we have to give in term of “responsibility”, in order to fill our stomach. If you have a responsible employee, he will expect to be commensurately compensated. When you have strong desire and sense of responsibility, you will be tortured by fear, obligation, and guilt (F.O.G.). You fear not getting what you want, or getting what you don’t want, or losing what is in your grip, or not losing what you wish to lose. Because of the implied responsibility, you feel obligated to do certain things although you are unable to do it or your heart tells you not to do it. You feel guilty for doing something or fail to do something. The toxic of having desire and therefore the implied responsibility is detrimental.
Don’t go into a job with responsibility but love. You will then enjoy expressing love and do your job like molding artistic clay or painting a drawing. You will not be plagued by F.O.G.
Don’t go into parenthood with responsibility but love. You will then enjoy expressing love and raise your children like playing with pets. You will not be tortured by F.O.G. It is sad that some people love each other but their deeds are hurting each other because of responsibility. If you love someone and you want to be loved, don’t make him/her sad or angry.
When you have a sick parent to care for, don’t go into it with responsibility but love. You will then enjoy expressing love and give the best care that you are happy to give. You will not be agonized by F.O.G.
Superheroes save people for the fun of it, not because “great power comes with great responsibility”. They don’t feel F.O.G. for not being able to save everybody and the world.
The five fingers have different lengths; i.e. inequality is natural. Similarly, you don’t have to give equal love to everybody. To get more love, one will have to be lovelier, so that he becomes luckier.
RESILIENT KID 