{"id":36800,"date":"2013-08-09T22:25:24","date_gmt":"2013-08-10T02:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=36800"},"modified":"2020-07-07T22:25:36","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T02:25:36","slug":"i-dont-mean-this-in-the-long-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=36800","title":{"rendered":"I don\u2019t mean this in the long run"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"border-image alignnone wp-image-36801 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/qqkoreans.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/qqkoreans.jpg 400w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/qqkoreans-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">But right now, I kind of hate my family.\u00a0 I kind of hate all Koreans for that matter.\u00a0 The feeling will obviously eventually subside, and we\u2019ll all find some sort of compromise to living again eventually, but at this very moment, I\u2019m kind of pissed off at life, and I have only my family to thank for that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Does this make me sound selfish?\u00a0 Yeah sure, but I\u2019m coming to the conclusion to a potential personal belief that everyone needs to have some selfish in them in order to prevent themselves from missing out on well, life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">During the tail end of my latest miserable visit up to Northern Virginia, the place where I grew up and now the place I dread going to more than jury duty or a workload of 380+ slide PowerPoints, the family was having another argument.\u00a0 Typical\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=8065\">Korean story<\/a>\u00a0bullshit, but then my mom pipes in that she now \u201cgets\u201d why the grandparents in Korean dramas are always pining for themselves to finally just die, so that they could alleviate the burden of their existence of their struggling children.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">At this remark, something inside of me snapped.\u00a0 It\u2019s a whole other chapter to the Korean story that I just absolutely fucking hate about my people.\u00a0 Koreans feeling the need to be so selfless and sacrificial to their offspring that they completely screw themselves over to where they accomplish nothing in life that creates the capability for them to sustain themselves when they grow old.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just in Korean dramas either, because I grew up hearing at least five hundred times my own grandma moaning out that she wished that she would just pass on, and get it all over with.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I can\u2019t say that I really knew my grandmother that well.\u00a0 She lived with my family for a few years while I was growing up, and we were often times always at odds because of not just the language barrier between us, but the simple generational gap between her and the old world, and me being the defiant little shit I was when I was a kid.\u00a0 But regardless, aside from the fact that she birthed five daughters, I don\u2019t really know anything about her.\u00a0 I do remember though that I never once met my grandfather on that side of the family (that I can recall), and for whatever circumstances, they were never successful to where my grandmother wasn\u2019t always a topic of argument between my mom and the aunts throughout my formative years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">No disrespect to my grandmother, but she didn\u2019t really succeed the Korean story.\u00a0 My family and the rest of the aunts\u2019 families struggled to sustain her in her golden years, and she was more often a topic of argument than she was someone trying to peacefully enjoy the remainder of life.\u00a0 There were points where it seemed like none of her daughters wanted to house her, whether it be for financial, conflict with the rest of the family, or just plain not wanting to, and she spent a few years in a home too.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t really sound like a successful Korean story there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">But that\u2019s kind of reality.\u00a0 That\u2019s kind of like what all the Korean dramas my mom was referring to is like.\u00a0 The monumental number of failed Korean stories that exist out there, because in reality, not everyone is going to be substantially financially successful.\u00a0 Success is most certainly not about the hardest workers making the most money, it\u2019s a combination of sure, hard work, but also the people you know, actual talent, timing, luck, tenacity and perseverance. In reality, the perfect storm of all these good fortunes doesn\u2019t happen to everyone.\u00a0 To everyone it doesn\u2019t, a more mundane life awaits.\u00a0 Does it necessarily make it a bad life?\u00a0 No, but it\u2019s definitely not the financially successful and sustainable outcome that the Korean story is so often seeking.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">So with such terrible odds in the world, it makes me wonder why should I be so selfless and lay down my life and cease my own goals and ambitions, if\/when I ever have children of my own?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I\u2019m not saying that being selfless is a negative trait.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fantastic trait to have, and certainly the world would be a better place if more people had more selflessness.\u00a0 But at the same time, I do believe that there is such a thing as people who are\u00a0<em>too\u00a0<\/em>selfless.\u00a0 So much, they shoot their own lives in the foot, and accomplish absolutely nothing at all in their own lives.\u00a0 I\u2019m thinking of a lot of people that I know in my life that I\u2019ve seen make valiant efforts to be selfless and be \u201cthe guy\u201d for everyone else, and often times I wonder if it really gets them anywhere other than maybe e-shoutouts or a pat on the back.\u00a0 Hell, I know I\u2019ve been that guy in my past too, and sometimes still feel the need to remind myself to help myself with my own interests and pursuits.\u00a0 But I find it hard to sympathize with those that are so selfless they miss out on things that they\u2019re genuinely interested in, because there\u2019s absolutely nothing wrong with helping yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I\u2019m also not saying that people should be selfish to the point of being unpleasantly greedy, but does it really hurt to help one\u2019s self from time to time?\u00a0 Absolutely not.\u00a0 Live out your own lives and accomplish as many things as you wish to try.\u00a0 Eventually, there might come a time when as middle-aged grown-ups, we feel like we\u2019ve done all the things we had in mind, and might then shift more priorities into massaging the next generation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">One sad revelation I realize is that I don\u2019t really know my own parents that well either.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just my grandmother, I don\u2019t really know my own parents all that well.\u00a0 Chalk some of it to the language barrier growing up, but frankly, I don\u2019t know my mom\u2019s hobbies, or what my dad\u2019s first car ever was.\u00a0 I know my mom was a bank teller at one point, and that my dad was in the Korean Marines, which makes everyone in my family believe my dad has some sort of PTSD which has led to a lot of his behavioral issues that appear to be the core of what\u2019s ripping my family apart.\u00a0 But I really don\u2019t know a whole lot more them, which I\u2019m now feeling some regret about and feel the consideration to rectify.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">My resolve for writing about family-related bullshit has hit empty again.\u00a0 Again, I\u2019m more or less just blowing off steam via words, because frankly I don\u2019t think anyone really wants to listen to me yammer about this kind of crap one-on-one.\u00a0 But I think I\u2019ve said everything I was thinking about throughout the course of today.\u00a0 And of course, it\u2019s absurd to say that I hate my family genuinely, but it doesn\u2019t change the fact that I\u2019m still pretty fucking pissed at them right now.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But right now, I kind of hate my family.\u00a0 I kind of hate all Koreans for that matter.\u00a0 The feeling will obviously eventually subside, and we\u2019ll all find some sort of compromise to living again eventually, but at this very moment, I\u2019m kind of pissed off at life, and I have only my family to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=36800\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">I don\u2019t mean this in the long run<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,71,103,15,91,27],"class_list":["post-36800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-famiry","tag-motherland","tag-og","tag-pf","tag-virginia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36800"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49350,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36800\/revisions\/49350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}