pass it on

pass it on

people don’t want to die. it happens tho, dying that is, and so how do we deal with something that we don’t want to do. in my case, i change my perspective.

in the beginning, my goals were to passing classes, eating junk food, playing video games, and above all having a good time. if mom and dad were happy, i was for sure pretty happy.

after school, my goals changed. get a stable job, and somehow contribute to society. my goal to please mom and dad had not changed, but the things that pleased them did change.

after getting that stable job, and becoming financially independent from mom and dad, i found another change of my goals. happiness. mom and dad wanted me to be happy at a stable job, and financially independent from them. but this time there was a twist, what made them happy was for me to be happy. this was completely new to me. in college they didn’t care what i wanted to do, they cared about classes, i needed to get good grades. in grade school, what i wanted was irrelevant, if grades weren’t good, i wasn’t good. but this time, they wanted what i wanted.

my parents work hard, they have come from families who struggled (so they tell me!!). why did they work so hard to attain what they have now –was it just for them? or were they working hard, for me?

the thing is, they were working for themselves –me.

i am my parents, they are their parents.

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i recently looked back one generation. my father specifically. he was born in iran, and at 18 moved to the states for school on a scholarship. he spoke no english. he then managed to marry a beautiful blonde (not easy for a foreign man i tell you!!) and then had 3 successful (and very good looking might i add) children. that’s the american dream folks, and now he’s thriving in one of the most sought after cities in the world, america’s finest city, sunny san diego. i see him attaining grandmas goals which were also his.

i never met my father’s father, and have seen his mother all of 2-3 times in my life. but i know that they are proud of him, he’s reached his goals and he’s taken their position.

grandma was probably afraid to go when she did. like i said, people don’t want to die. but she knew that her three children have achieved success, and are now the parents with children on their way to success. grandma mahin (everyone calls her by first name, even me) may have passed away, but she’s not all dead. i’m one of many still around, striving to reach my goal.