Liberal versus Traditional

While browsing Facebook some post got me motivated to share my thoughts about being liberal or traditional. Let me start this writing by defining these two words. LIBERAL means willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one's own, open to new ideas while TRADITIONAL define as an existing in or as part of a long established tradition; habitually done, used or found.

Writing this is just base on my own personal opinion, but also based on my own personal experiences so reading this try not to be judgmental. For they say experience is still the best teacher in life if you really wanted to succeed and find true happiness. A person can be highly and academically intellectual in school but ignorant, unhappy and foolish in real life. Socrates believed that there were different kinds of knowledge, important and trivial. He acknowledges that most of us know many "trivial" things. He states that craftsman possesses the important knowledge, the practice of his craft, but this is important only to himself not to others. But this is not what Socrates is referring to, He is referring to the most important of all knowledge and that is "how best to live". He put forward as the factor as a basis of arguments and that is not easily answered, and most people live in shameful ignorance regarding matters of ethics and morals.

Now let us go deeper and take a look at the broad side of which of the two can help us go through in life. I am not an expert I am just trying to share something that my children might be able to read in the future. I cannot say that I am too traditional because I believed that there are some ways or some few things in the past that needs to be buried behind. 

For example in my family we homeschool our children, we encourage them to accept the fact that mistake and failure are two normal things that they need to embrace, that all they need to do is just think of the ways how to go through it and what to do if they commit mistakes or if they fail. No one taught us about how to face failure but in reality failure is part of life, you cannot appreciate success if you don't know what failure is all about. We homeschool them not because they have problems or because we cannot afford to send them to regular school. We believed in the saying that if we think education is expensive try ignorance. We homeschool them because we believed that they need to embrace changes just like how we embrace TELEVISION, COMPUTER, AND TECHNOLOGY that they need to realize that improvement is parallel to changes. How a person is able to improve if his doing the same thing over and over again and wanting a different result, taking the same road and wanting the different destination  that is totally foolish. 

We don't have anything against traditional school because without it weren't able to know the basic, but we believed that there are more than the world can offer, most people know this especially those who started living their dreams after they realize finishing first in school is not the end result of being successful, that life is a race of reality of everyday event happening in our lives not a destination that everyone is expecting no finish. That is why no one can define us because of our mistakes or because of our decision we make. In reality, we are the one doing our destiny, our happiness.

Next we teach our children the importance of money and relationship, Money is not the main thing in our family because if it is, my children are all wearing NIKE, playing the IPAD, having all this luxurious thing that money can buy then buried ourselves in debt, but it isn't, because we believe that literacy is better than ignorance, we believe in love, integrity, discipline and honesty. Actually according to survey these people are not really rich because truly rich people believe that financial independence is more important than displaying high social status. That is why we believe that we need to teach our next generation the importance of how to be financially literate or else the cycle will go on and on and we don't want that to happen. We wanted our children that at the end of the day when we don't have all the time and energy to help people they will be there to continue what we have started with their time, energy and resources, because we also believe if we can give more than our time why not maximize the thing if it is possible. 

Being traditional is good but there are also pros and cons. For example in a family, the male is the sole responsible for taking care of the families economic needs that are good because the wife has all the time to take care her children but with our modern world we cannot consider these things. Unexpected things might happen and we as a wife may not be ready yet same goes with our children because they might be getting used to it, believing having somebody around all the time to pick up their pieces. In a traditional environment, parents and children relationship are strong and stable but wait till both parents and children feel the burnout. As children are growing we as a parent must learn how to let go and we cannot just do this if from the start we didn't train ourselves that our children are not our possession, for according to Kahlil Gibran a prophet:

"Our children are not your children. 

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you, 

and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts. 

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls, 

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams."

There is only one goal I believe that every human individual wanted in their lives and that is to be HAPPY. If being traditional makes you happy be it, and if being liberal makes your life better just go on and makes your life better and always remember this...

" People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost ". --Dalai Lama