At this point of time in life, I've been through so many challenges and the one thing that challenges me the most emotionally is dealing with departing loved ones. In recent years, I've seen numerous people (and dogs) that are related to me in a big way or less, depart. It's not an easy task to deal with such feelings for anyone, which keeps me thinking how difficult it can be for people who are worse off compared to me. It's been a tremendous battle for me emotionally these few years, and thus I really feel for people who have had it even tougher.
Many years ago, I watched an episode of As Told By Ginger, a cartoon and the main character's (Ginger) best friend's grandmother passed away. As the Ginger rewinded on a random home video taken years ago on her own late grandmother with her family, she quotes "Sometimes your family can make you really mad or feel bad, and make it hard to see the good things about them, but then one day, they're gone, and all you have left are the memories, and you see all good things and a new light, and you wished you had you had pointed them out a little more often along the way". I feel quite fortunate to learn something like that at an early part of my life through this show. An affirmation that cartoons (good ones) can be good educators to young people.
There have so many life lessons on how we should "live like there's no tomorrow" and think what we would do if it was our last day. Of course it does sound a bit extreme, but it goes to tell us how unprepared we can be when the worst happens. It is by no indication you should live your life conservatively to avoid any bad things or on the other end, go all out for something on the fear you won't have a chance tomorrow. The lesson is to do your best, but remember the other important things in life (No examples, I leave that to your judgement).
It has been quite an emotional struggle for me for various reasons over the years to deal with a lot of difficult situations like I mentioned earlier. Again I go back to something that has been an "invisible hand" in helping me through these tough times. Emotional intelligence (EI) . I learnt a lot about EI back in my first semester in uni. There was a unit about EI and learning about citations (acknowledging other people's work). Although the unit was so dry and I disliked it so much, it has been very useful for me in life. EI has been a driving force for me in life, especially when handling the most difficult times. I would recommend people to develop better EI for the benefit of themselves. Emotions make or break people, so make sure it is positive for you. The most ironic part of it all, I topped the unit, not in my wildest expectations.
I've just lost my dog, Tiger, today. He's been around for over 12 years. He's been an absolutely terrific pet, he has the been the best dog we could hope for. He's lived a great life and I'm very happy to be part of it.I will miss him very much.
~deyao~
