Wise words from the late Dr. Lee Kum Tatt

How do we help our young to find a purpose in life? Dr. Lee Kum Tatt said:

One of the ways I follow is to ask questions and try to help them to find the answers. Here is an example.What do you treasure most in your life?

This sounds like a stupid question. My children thought so when they were young. My teenage grand children have taken over this thinking for a while but are now beginning to appreciate the good in some of our way of thinking. I take this as the generation gap which will narrow down with time and age.

As parents, we want our family members to grow up and be good citizens. It is exasperating that there are no accepted set paths to do this and our kids are constantly exposed to all sorts of ideas, some of which were not considered to be acceptable to us before.

For the younger generation, it is just as frustrating not knowing how to achieve what they think they like to have or to be. Our youngsters are looking for guidance on how to succeed in life.

Encouraging them to go for money is easy. Teaching them how to earn money in the correct way is a different matter. To teach them good values in words is also not difficult.

Some common words used include: love your parents; have integrity, be caring for others, avoid the four vices, etc. But to teach others how to live these values is not so easy. This is especially so when our society places strong emphasis on money making above everything else. To do anything different from the newly introduced acceptable norms will cost our young opportunities, effort, money, fun and with no materialistic or other tangible returns.

But as grandparents and elders we still have a role to play to guide the future generation to keep them on the “straight and narrow path” which are good for us all now and for our future generations.

Extracted from:
www.leekumtatt.blogspot.com