About the role model thing.
This is the topic for my first Jianshu post. Why? Because I followed some empowered working mom and read through all her postings up to now and decided I'd give up my WeChat subscription account (which I just established a week ago and which only allowed me to post once a day... I guess that's it. I'd love a platform where I'm given more than one chance to speak per day for a windbag like me...) Okay back to the topic, why'd I choose this one? I really admire this great working mom and can relate so much to her when she talked about the way how she felt about her daughter. Even I'm 22 (and yes, I know about you... okay please ignore this Taylor Swift lyric thing), I have been imagining forever about how my little one would look like, what would be the first word she speaks out aloud, when is our first fight, who she'd fall in love with for her very first time in life... I don't know why I'd think so much ahead about her, but there was this someone special telling me that if one day she came to me, I'd never be alone any more. For my past twenty years of life, I struggled with this loneliness issue very often. Divorced parents, up-side-down family circumstances, never-lasted love, violent ex... I guess I have grown even more insecure everyday since my parents left each other for someone else. Luckily there were not only my parents who still loved and cared me, though neither of them have stayed by my side for a single school day, I still had my deputy parents --- my aunt and uncle (my aunt is my dad's elder sister and my uncle is in-law) My aunt being a gynecologist, uncle being a teacher in the primary school I attended, my life was surprisingly stable despite my parents' wild and woolly years. But I do feel different. There is just something missing from my primary source of care... my biological parents. So I had always felt lonely and had always fallen in love so easily and soon became very dependent on my ex'es, which did me no good and all my past relationships ended partially due to my abnormal personalities as a result of lack of primary care from my biological parents. I used to count on love to make me feel no longer alone in this world and count on the significant other to become everything in my life. It's just like that. Since then I have long begun my wildest dream of my little daughter. I did not think of a cute guy, though... Maybe I feel destined to have a little replica of myself first. She will be my everything and for sure I'd never lose her. Why? She is basically part of my body. That does not mean I'll be this psychic mom who can never let go of children. In fact, I'd accept the fact that one day she'd leave my side for many reasons, for college, for work, for marriage and even for any other natural or objective causes, including us breaking up... But she' always be my little angel and I shall never feel isolated and alone, no more. When the great working mom told the story that how she daughter started to reflect on her, to love and care for people around her in the way she had always wanted her to, I know exactly what she was talking about and that is exactly the miracle I want to pass on to my daughter. That's the magic and myth about passing on life. Not to pass our unrealized dreams or vocations onto our children, but to see how she/he is living her full potential and grow out as someone totally distinctive and unique, yet possessing the very characteristics like you, the way you walk, the staring poses in front of windows...
So this working mom really inspired me today. It is so cheerful to think that on any random day you went online or you opened your WeChat subscription accounts, you see the sharing story of some stranger and you were totally motivated. She seemed to have travelled along a path that you dream of yourself traveling on. She wrote those sentences that pointed right into your heart. But I know, we are different. One life path is never copied and pasted. In fact, one life path could never be 100% parallel and homogenous to others. That's why the Earth is crowded with population, but we did never see repeated stories once. One has to live her own life. Everyone has a unique life journal to write. Therefore, I'm not okay with the prevailing thoughts that once we hit the button and click "share", the group you share the story to would be much or less influenced by the story. Sharing has nothing to be complained about, but the absurd idea that one role model's life miracle would save someone else' life should really go into dumpster. This morning my dad shared a story of a female investment banker to me, with a title opening like "The very secret behind a billionaire enterprise...". Yet the biographical story of this billionaire was worth paying attention to (I'll say, for once), the title is exactly the kind of trash I want to get rid of in my daily doses of readings. But dad's request is dad's request, I clicked the link, read it through and gave some feedback that was general and heartless to him, telling him I was in office already, too. He did not bother me further with any discussion of this role model, thank God.
It is not that I'm saying we should cover our eyes, cover our ears and enclose ourselves to own own world. To disregard others' successes could be the worst form of arrogance. But it is important to know that a story is a story. A story would never have enough time and space to sort out all the details, boring or interesting, petty or significant, or what-so-ever. A story has always been concentrated for the author's purposes. Maybe she wanted to imply something she would put so much emphasize on one aspect in the story she wrote. Maybe she does not wish to disclose any more private issues in an online story that could potentially have thousands of readers in a few seconds. But their stories were indeed inspiring and ground-breaking. I think I myself benefited from role model stories mostly in the regard that I get to learn about so many different possibilities of life. That I am scared no more of being in a current unideal situation or that I am alerted of life still needs to be changed no matter what kind of materialized life I have led myself to... things like these were my takeaways from role models. But still, I could not deny the great power conveyed through their stories and speeches. I still remembered my earliest role model, the founder of Acumen Fund, Jacqueline Novogratz. I saw her speech about how to live an emerging life on TedEx Talk and saw her fists crossed over time when she cheered for the African people she met again when recalling them in her speech. I know I had been touched. And she did change my life :-) I'd cheer myself with the great strength conveyed through her eyes and body language during the speech. I know and have known since then that we have a long long battle to strive for and college is just a cornerstone. I'm accumulating my compassion and sympathy everyday through daily contact with others, including my dad who has always been strange familiar to me, my friend who just came out to me and the delivery guy who was just one of the figures who contributed to China's booming digital economy these years... That's how I'm observing life forms and constantly drawing connections to my interests in human development and related. Novogratz continues to be my primary role model and I still hope for the rare chance to meet her in person at her organization. But right now I'm thousands of miles away from her organization center in Manhattan and from Kilimanjaro... Where should I start, again?
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