Hereditary Habits

Besides passing along certain genes to you as a parent, they also pass on habits to you. This is done easily because as a child you grow up looking up to your parents.  For most of your life, they are the only model you have to base your own actions and reactions by.

This is both good and bad, because as a parent they would love for you to pickup on everything they do positively.  At the same time, they would love for you not to pick up on everything they do negatively.  The interesting thing is they can’t program you to do only one.

As much as your parents would love to assume that you didn’t hear them cuss during the traffic jam.  Or see you lie to your spouse about how much you spent at the store today.  You, as a child see all of this, and in one way or another it gets programmed into your mind.

You absorb it all, both good and bad habits.  Many people just accept the fact that they have all these traits which most likely came from being around their parents.  While others absolutely hate it and will even go to the opposite extreme of the habit.

For example, let’s say your mom is a hoarder.  She hoards everything from clothes, to food, to plastic containers and even old electronic devices.  You grow up with absolutely no space for your own and nothing but antique electronics that no one in their right mind would want.

You develop a mindset that is the complete opposite of your mom.  “Why do I need so many things and why can’t I be happy with nothing.”  “I never want to grow up being like my mom.”

Suddenly you start to categorize yourself as a minimalist.  You don’t need anything.  Just the bare essentials.

And you start shunning anyone who you deem to possess hoarding traits.  “I grew up with a hoarding mom my whole life and was miserable because of it.  I’m not going to re-live that nightmare with you.”

You expect the whole world to embrace this new you.  Who is actually created from the interacting with your mother your whole life.  The new you is based on the opposite of who your mother is.

In general, pertaining to our parent’s habits, we will do one of three things:

1. Accept them as who we are and just let their habits be our habits.
2. Not accept them, push them away, hate it, and even go to the opposite extreme of the habit.
3. Become oblivious to it and not even notice it having an effect on us.  For some it may still have an effect, despite their lack of knowledge of the habits.

Personally, I recommend none of these options.  My recommendation is trying to find a happy medium between who your parents’ habits and the extreme opposite of the habit.

Being a hoarder does has it’s positive.  Why else would your mother do it?  People actually recommend buying products in bulk, storing them at home, and using them as needed.

Buying in bulk saves you money because they are usually priced cheaper then individual packaged items.  Buying in bulk also saves you time and gas from all the visits you would’ve made to the store had you gotten the items in individual packages.

At the same time, being a minimalist also has benefits to it too.  You never buy things that end up in your closet or garage like the newest exercise machine that promises to make you look like a super model.  Money and space is saved.

The goal is to embrace both sides and learn when is the best time to apply each habit.  Living on a budget, it’s not wise to buy things cheap, hoard them at home, and never use them.  At the same time, as a business owner you can’t expect revenue to come in when you’re not willing to spend money on marketing and re-modeling.

There is a reason and a season for everything in life.  It is up to you to make the best out of what is given to you.  And what is given to most of us is hereditary habits.

Cheating Husband

Yeahhhhh … time to bash on men.

I’m actually not qualified to give advice on relationships, but when asked, I will give my two cents.

A friend recently came up to me and told me she caught her husband cheating on her.

She came home from work early, walked into her bedroom and found him with another woman on their bed.

She then grabbed all her stuff, moved out, and now they are living separately.

Her life is a complete mess.  Family and friends keep on telling her she needs to divorce the man.  Finances and bills are slowly catching up, now that they both pay separately for all expenses instead of sharing them like before.  She’s thinking of quitting work, but knows that will only make things worse.

Of course she feels hurt, betrayed, and disrespected, but deep down she hopes that both her and her husband can grow together from this incident.

She says that her husband has a history of cheating.  He’s never cheated on her before, but in previous relationships he has cheated.  He once used her to cheat on someone else.  When she found out, she broke it off and they never talked for like 2-3 years.

Now, they’ve been married for 5 years.  Not all of them happily though, but the blame shouldn’t be placed all on him.

For the past year, they have just been co-existing together.  There’s no words exchanged, no physical embraces, nothing that might resemble a healthy relationship.

She feels she is partly responsible for this void and thinks that he reached out to another woman because of this void in their relationship.

What hurts even more is the woman that he cheated on her with is a mutual friend.

She has been suspecting of them being up to something.  Texting and calling each other whenever they can.  Catching them playing footsies under the table, which he denies and say’s “It was just an accident.”  Him getting another phone, so she can’t track all his calls and texts.

She even made him agree not to see/talk to her anymore when she felt it was getting out of hand.

They still found a way to see each other though.

Their mutual friend also has a history of cheating.  She has jeopardized other people’s marriages too.  She’s even tried to make it work by being the “3rd” person in the relationship.  That obviously failed in the end.

She asks me, “What does it mean when a guy says give me time and space?”

I told her, “If it was me, I’d need that just to think things through and make sure what I intend to say to you is what I really want.  But in his case, it could be an excuse for him to keep on cheating.”

Then she asks, “Do you think I should try to make this work?”

I told her, “Honestly, I think he will cheat on you again.  He has a history of it.  And you even confronted him about the early flirting and he still couldn’t control himself.  I say let him go.”

He tells her that he doesn’t want to see her right now, but still wants to talk to her on the phone.

She says that in order for them to move on from this, the adulteress needs to be completely out of the picture from here on.

She says that she feels like he’s just waiting for her to file a divorce.

She says she will if he doesn’t try to make things better.

He has until the end of this year to make things better.

Hail Damage

6/13/12

Was driving on 75 N up to Garland for a photo shoot with Vi.

Skies started growing dark and before you knew it, hail started to fall.We were trying to find cover, but there is no cover on the freeway unless you get under a bridge.

I guess everyone else was thinking the exact same thing, because all 5 lanes was blocked with cars trying to hide from the hail.

That meant, no one behind them could get pass them.  There were at least 10 cars stuck behind them.  No one would budge because they didn’t want to get hailed on.

You could hear cars honking who were trying to find shelter, but couldn’t because all the cars under the bridge refused to move.

We decided to drive to the service lane and try to get as close as possible, hoping the huge wall would block someone hail.

I started hearing glass crack, so I suggested to Vi that we move to the middle of the van.  That way, if the front glass did give way, we wouldn’t get cut by it.

Definitely the scariest 15 mins of my life.

It’s such a helpless feeling knowing that you can’t go anywhere.

Remind me never to drive again … :(.

Here are some pics of the van … the very next day.

Hail Damage, a set on Flickr.