I Will Force My Children To Achieve This…..
I am a:
- Personal Branding Strategist who Mentors & Coaches people on Personal Branding.
- Student of Self-Learning, Self-Education & Self-Evolution that constantly believes in never ending improvement, productivity & change.
- Obsessed, Hardcore, Competitor who has hates to lose.
- Person who is paranoid & curious about new techniques, hacks, products & supplements that would lead me to peak performance
- Individual who only wants to be surrounded by the best of the best of the best.
So that is why when I announced to the world that I was going to be a Father, immediately the social media universe that I was connected to started bombarding me with…..
- “How lucky that child is going to be having the World’s Best Mentor”
- “I am sure your child is going to go to Oxford or Harvard”
- “Loy Machedo’s child will be an absolute genius because he will access to the best books, the best technology & the best education”
- “Man, I am pretty sure you have big plans for your kiddo!”
- “Bro, I know one thing — your kid is going to be the best of the best in the world.”
I listened to everyone’s opinion.
In fact, I myself had a opinion about what my child was going to become before marriage. And I had a long list of assumptions. A kind of a bucket list for my kid. Some of the points in that bucket list for my children were…..
- Graduate from Harvard
- Study under the best minds
- Be mentors by the whose who of the Business world
- Learn the most advanced techniques related to mind & body
- Become a hardcore pro where business was concerned
I think you get my rift…. More like Universal Solider meets Prometheus meets Artificial Intelligence meets T-1000 meets The Perfect Human Clone.
Oh and did I mention my kid would look incredibly hot, have a perfect 6 pack abs and be a flawless specimen….
And then I went through life….
And then I got married….
And then I got divorced….
And then I got married….
And then I got divorced….
And then I got married….
And then I got divorced….
And then I finally got married…for the last time.
This time however, when I did get married, I got married a simple Thai villager farmer, whose everyday life was working in the farm under the hot sun, cooking in the house, cleaning the house and taking care of the family. Whose only luxury was eating prawns once a month. And whose only dream in life was to one day travel in an Airplane.
That was the woman I got married to.
And as I spend time with her, I found out how she lived her life even more…..
- A woman who considered it an honor to massage the feet of her husband before he went to sleep
- A woman who felt privileged & happy because I asked her to do things for me.
- A woman whose life goal now was to look after me when I was old and bedridden.
It kind of changed my perspective about life, how I viewed life and how I lived it. To be honest with you, until that day, I had never met any small child who felt more than happy to sleep on the floor with her great grandmother — even though this woman was dying.
Until that day, I had never met any family that would together sitting on the cold hard floor while sharing food with one another and being happy to know everyone ate food as a family.
Until that day, I had never met people who were happy not having anything rich or expensive to brag about but being happy in small things — like running in the field, teasing one another, or just having the immense joy knowing they had money to buy an ice-cream. And yeah — sharing that with others.
I looked, heard and experienced all this for the first time in my life. And then, I thought about my own life. How I had lived it, how I had viewed it and how I wanted it to be. And then I thought to myself —
Why? Why am I doing all this?
To be happy.
Well — ain’t I happy right now?
Er.. yeah, I guess so.
So now what next?
Earn a Million?
Target Multi-Million?
Hope for Billions?
But for what?
Well, to be happy.
Er…so what am I right now?
Happy right?
The more I thought about it, the more it occurred to me that the reason I wanted to achieve the millions & billions was because I was constantly looking at other people, I was constantly focused on what social media was advertising and I was completely obsessed about living ‘other-peoples-lives’.
What if there wasn’t any internet, any social media, any likes, any comments — what if I was staying all alone in a village away from the rest of the world, what would I like to be then?
I thought about it.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized, I was living someone else’s dream. A dream where I could get the appreciation, approval and admiration of others. And though I used to constantly state and proudly trumpet that “I didn’t give a flying fuck about the world” — I guess deep down I did.
- Why then did I want my child to go to Harvard?
- Why then did I want my child to be mentored by the greatest minds?
- Why then did I want a Perfect Child?
My child didn’t want any of this.
I wanted it.
Not my unborn child.
Maybe my child only wanted to be Happy — Minus all the complications that I had brought with me. Its like I carried my personal baggage of my past with me and was planning to dump all of it — on my child. Along with my insecurities, my past expectations, my failures, my hopes, my dreams…..And that is why I wanted my child to be “Loy Machedo 2.0”
So then I had decided what I wanted my child to be.
CONCLUSION
My wife and I were sitting down having dinner when she suddenly exclaimed “When baby come, you will teach computer, teach book, teach so many things. And baby become smart like you.”
To which I responded — “No. Baby will not learn computer, book and so many things. Because baby will be like you — Farmer.”
My wife gave me the expression as if I had told her I wanted to change my gender. She asked me rather shockingly (and very seriously) “But why farmer?”
“Because I want our baby to become like you — Simple.”
I explained to my wife the values, the character, the happiness, the hard-work, the simplicity, the beauty of her life. And then my wife responded with… “Huh?”
I suppose my wife couldn’t understand why I said what I said simply because she didn’t see life on the other side. She didn’t experience the madness of money. She didn’t know how fast, furious & foolish life is in the modernized world. All she knew was the world that I introduced her to — a world that was full of care, happiness & joy. Little did she know how pressurized, packed, peer-based & proud was the world I came from.
So I smiled and told her, “Don’t worry, baby will be happy” to which, she smiled and hugged me.
Sometimes, I wish someone had told me when I was small, what true happiness meant, how to attain true happiness and what true happiness really means. Maybe then I wouldn’t be so crazy and obsessed about more money, more credentials, more toys and more of everything. I would have been content with the little things in life.
Today, as I sit down on my chair, in front of my iMac, with my iPad being placed on a stand next to me with my iPhone displaying the unending notifications from my social media platforms, I look at my wifey. She is sitting on the floor, playing with the Chihuahua — talking to them as if they were really her children. As I look at her and smile, she looks at me — gives me the biggest smile in the world, then stands up, walks up to me, hugs me and tells me once again for the hundredth time “I love you so much. I so happy. You happy baby?”
I smile and respond…. “Yes baby, I’m happy”.
Yes, I am the World’s Number 1 blah blah blah…..
Seriously, who the fuck cares?
One day, when I go 6-feet underground, I guess none of these titles, trophies & toys would matter — would it?
That is what I want for me, my wife and my kids — to achieve the ultimate goal in life — In all the simplicity, in all the nothingness, and with just our togetherness….To be happy.
