Mark.g Switch

Serious miscommunications has occured in my family. The honda odyssey is the most used car in this house and for that fact the key for this car has been the most vulnerable to being lost / misplaced and unaccounted for. It has already been lost once or twice - I cannot remember.

It happened again tonight. Yesterday I drove that car to work and fetch my mom with it. Felyn and Diane took the Mazda. Tonight Felyn come to realise that one of the key is been misplaced again with one in the keybox. The key that was misplaced was the one with the mailbox key attached to it. I was the main culprit in this though I could have swore that I didn't drive with that key yesterday.

Naturally, having a short tempered and ballistic father in the house while we were growing up just raise our anxiety to record levels everytime a situation like these happens. He is well known for blowing things up way out of proportions all of our childhood life. Jasmin would be barked at like a dog for a 'B' or forgot to bring a book home - is just one small example. This puts the whole house at the edge of the knife. When we lost the key - everybody is frantic at searching - but not for the key but primarily who is going to draw the short straw and to be labelled the scapegoat and be the receiving end of a long and brutal verbal and emotional abuse.

I am not trying to point the finger at my father - the key is found just 20minutes later. We found that actually father took the other key and didn't put it back in the keybox. I found the key at the keybox and took it down to Felyn and asked her to keep that key back in the safe so that we only need to account for 1 key. Having to account for only one key makes it 2 times easier to find the lost key - the reason is because we do not need to try to remmeber an easily overlooked detail of which key we used. In fact having 2 keys makes it alot more difficult to find who the culprit was and how it was lost. If we just have 1 key in the keybox and the other in the safe - it is alot easier. Who ever drove the car last is the person who lost it - and if you find the person who lost it he/she could easily recount his or her steps went he/she used it. Having 2 keys means we have to find which 2 person used the 2 keys last and the chances of finding it back is half as anyone can be the culprit.

The primary purpose of this blog is that with this bitter brawl in the family I come upon a revelation of the root of our family problems - and I want to remind myself of this so that I do not make the same mistake with my family. Why are we all so short tempered? Why are we always on knifes edge? Is because there are so much at stake. Imagine everybody in an island with limited food, space, resources to survive on - imagine the competition it would create! Even friends would become enemies. And true friendship are reduced to mere allies. This is analogous to what we are facing at home. The culprit pays a high price! Everybody wants to find the culprit so that the one that is not the culprit can be absolve of all responsibilities. This makes it worse - The one that are not culprits are just very happy that they 'escaped' which hence stage a mindset that is not condusive for family collaboration, understanding and community sympathy and responsibility. A key is just a key and it should not be the basis for family dishormany - what happened to day was that just because a key was lost - nobody wants to be at the receiving end of the brutal abuse that everybody is pointing fingers and shouting at each other frantically to find who is the culprit or frantically trying to defend themselves - this escalate the whole situation out of proportion to be a cut throat and creates disharmony among ourselfs even when the monster is not at home. We know who ever is at fault will have to face the monster. It has been like these for more than 2 decades in this house and it will never stop being like that. What happen today was I threw a temper and Felyn threw an even larger temper also! While the monster who perpetuate this for a all our lifes and create this atmosphere of 'cut throat island' just sit and lounge without having a care in the world.

I am going to be the head of my own family one day. So I am telling you 'Mark Future' never never never never blow things out of proportions with your family. It would create and perpetuate disharmony at home even when you are not at home. If something is lost - find it together - responsibility should not be absent but it should also not be too obsessive because 'one has to face the monster'! Responsibility should always be there but for the RIGHT REASONS! Do not throw a temper or fit over a small thing.