Adversities are not rare in life.

ENDURANCE
Tâm threw the pile of papers at her boss and went away with her bag, regarded as quitting job. She whispered to herself: “Don’t think you have the right to bully others when you are a boss. Everyone has honor and self-esteem. If I cannot work here, I can find another place. I won’t die. Poor culture and bossy!” She was murmuring the whole way home. As she got home, she locked herself in her room and refused to respond to her mother.

Moments later, a text from Hồng - her colleague, came to invite her for coffee and a movie. It's better then. She crept out of the house, avoiding being noticed by her parents. Hồng rode Tâm on a scooter around the city and picked a spy movie to watch. Then, they went for some Phở (rice noodles). Tâm asked:

“May I ask you how you can stand such a rude boss like that?”
Hồng smiled and said:
“That guy may be nicer than many others out there. I used to work with many guys who were much more fearsome but I'm still fine.”
“Don't you feel offended?”
“Why should I feel so? He is an employed boss, we are also employed staff. Everyone works for a living. Collisions at work with each other are normal.”

Tâm looked at Hồng with surprise, asked:
“How can you be so calm? Don't you feel hurt by his offence?”
“I think it's kind of unwise to feel hurt. Those negative emotions do not earn our living, but rather harm us.”
“But honor is more important than money.”

“Honor is valuable when it is kept in the right situations. For example, I will be ashamed if foreigners spot our litters because that hurts our nation's honor. Or if I know that a friendly foreigner is robbed on our streets, then I will be ashamed. National honor is indeed important, while personal self-esteem is an unworthy sentiment to me.”

Tâm was surprised:
“How did you get that very matured attitude?”

“When I was a kid, I was often chided by my parents, even I was spanked in front of guests. But they are my parents, how could I get mad at them! It was weird to say, but bearing pains without nourishing anger had actually trained my ability to endure every nonsense thing life throws in me. As I grew up, I became very grateful to my parents for their punishment, which was such an invaluable lesson for me. Later in life, when encountering adversities, I’m able to remain calm. When we’re calm, we can understand many things behind the problem.”

“My parents never hit me. They are very different from your parents. They respect me. They even do not chide me for my mistakes if there are guests. I’m proud of living in such a good-culture family. What you said today reversed my viewpoint totally.”

Hồng smiled:
“Maybe you don’t watch movies about wars or the military. In a military base, newcomers are strictly trained until they can no longer feel self-pity or cranky. Only when they eliminate the feeling of self-pity and being annoyed could they can fight enemies. After coming home from tussling, many soldiers got the depression and even committed suicide. It's because they were born in families that paid them high respect, like yours. Soldiers who grew up with strict parents would be fine after hard tussling because they had been used to with severe punishment.”

“I remember when I was a teenager, once, my teacher slapped me in front of the class because I left a notebook at home. But until now, I still like and respect him. I don’t feel any hatred.”

Tâm kept silent for a long while. Hồng continued:
“Get back to work tomorrow.”
“I threw a pile of paper into his face. How can I get back?”
“You can make an apology to him. It’s fine. Or you can text him to apologize now and do it again in person tomorrow.”
“That’s too hard.”
“You must overcome this to grow up. Don’t be childish anymore.”

Adversities are not rare in life. They can be a financial hardship, a health problem, a serious accident, or a defamation, a damage towards our prestige and position, or a love problem, etc. If our spirit is weak and fragile, we are engulfed in those adversities. We must have enough courage and enough moral qualities to endure and overcome adversities in life.

Endurance must be trained within our family first. The love we have for our children, the more we need to teach them carefully and strictly. We should never ever punish our children due to anger, otherwise, we are showing them our moral faults. We only spank them to train their endurance, which will be essential for their future. Nowadays, what we call civilized methods are giving our children an over-protection, which expectedly weakens their courage and disadvantages them.

There are things that only adults can get, such as beer, wine, cigarettes, sex because if teenagers get into them, their bodies and minds will be destroyed. However, there are things that should be taught as soon as possible, such as music, foreign languages, and exercises. Especially, children should be trained to endure punishment without getting angry or being self-pity very early in life.

Parents’ spank is the only way to train a child’s immunity to anger when its body is hurt, because the parent’s love is always bigger than the punishment. Thanks to that, when they grow up, they can calmly endure and overcome the offences from others.

Accidents, illnesses, financial hardships are easier to endure than the loss of honor. Thus, we should train our children to have strong endurance throughout any kinds of adversities so that they have enough courage to face any rainy days in life.courage and enough moral qualities to endure and overcome adversities in life.

Janna

Please read more Janna Quotes: 1. https://jannaquotes.com/en/good-quotes/letting-go-of-all-the-credits
2. https://jannaquotes.com/en/good-quotes/looking-further