Invisible constraints

I want to give my children the best education possible. I mean it in its broadest sense possible: knowledge, values, behavior. I want them to have as many opportunities as they can. I want them to be good people that contribute to improve this world. And live happily ever after.

No matter how hard I try, I know I will also create an invisible handicap on them. My teachings, as much as all of their surroundings, will impose invisible constraints. They will take those constraints for granted because they are not aware of them, just as I am not aware of mine.

We try to educate as good as we can, but do so within those invisible constraints. As important as it is to make our best effort in educating, perhaps even more so is to allow them to identify those constraints and break free from them.

If you want your children (or yourself!) to find constraints, the best way is to get them to know people, the more diverse the better. As an adult, I’ve found nothing more enlightening than to develop a friendship with someone from another context (different education, country, culture, ...) Just by exposing yourself to a new set of preconceived ideas of how life should be lived, your mind immediately opens and blossoms. You question things that you have never thought about. Whether you change or not is not as relevant as the fact that you have unlearned that something had to be done in a certain way.

We live in a world of immense opportunities. When I look at my children, that is what I wish for them. I’ll try hard to teach my best values to them... only to let them question all those things I took for granted by exposing them to different ways to live life.

See you next week!