Friends are friendly, I am Miao Baoping, a psychological counselor, and the name of the network is like dust.
Today we continue to read Dr. Yue Xiaodong's book", "The Feeling of Ascending to Heaven: I Did Psychological Counseling at Harvard University": "Chapter 3 Career Choice: Listen to Your Own, Or Listen to Your Parents".
Body; Hovering between respecting parents and free choice
Jiahui sat in front of me with a sad face and kept asking me what to do.
I repeatedly explained that I could only help her make her own decisions, but not for her. Because no matter what decisions I make for her, it doesn't make her really solve the problem. Only if she figured out the method that suited her best would she really solve the problem.
"Why did your father force you to study law so much?" I asked Jiahui.
"It's not because I have a stable job as a lawyer and make a lot of money." Jiahui replied, "And my father has a theory, that is, if Chinese wants to gain a foothold in American society, he must break into mainstream society." What to do as a small trader and hawker, run a newspaper and magazine work. It is not enough to be an upright American, not to be looked up to. The United States is a very realistic society, if you have money, there will be people who will come to you and respect you; If you don't have money, people will exclude you and discriminate against you. So, if you want to live a good life in American society, you have to go to law school or medical school, you know?"
"So what do you think?" I asked Jiahui. "I admit that what my dad said makes a lot of sense. Many of my relatives in Taiwan were envious of my dad working as a doctor in the United States and making so much money. But I think being a lawyer and a doctor are all things you boys have to do, and we girls don't have to live so hard. ”
After a pause, Jiahui said, "You don't know what time my father left work all these years, it was eight or nine o'clock at night!" I don't want to live like him for a lifetime of early departure and late return. Also, I am most afraid of speaking in public, but as a lawyer, I must talk in front of everyone and argue with people, and my eloquence is not so bright. ”
"What does your dad think?" I asked again. "He always said that his uncle was also a very timid person at the beginning, but you see he has become good at talking now." He also always said that when his uncle first came to the United States, he wanted to study drama in the past, or he forced his uncle to change his law. Now my uncle especially thanks my father, saying that my father has led him to the right path. In particular, my aunt, who looks like a big star, would not have married her uncle if she had not studied law. JiaHui cut her hair.
"So your dad is going to lead you in the right direction too?" I smiled and asked Jiahui.
"Yes! But I just don't like being a lawyer. To study law, you have to memorize so many laws and regulations, and every time you fight a lawsuit, you have to exploit the loopholes in the original legal provisions and create some new regulations. It is no wonder that the laws of the United States have so many regulations, because everyone wants to create some new laws and regulations in the litigation. Wouldn't it be easier for everyone to linger between respecting parents and free choice and acting according to existing laws and regulations?"
"It seems that you are quite proficient in American law." I commented.
Jiahui heard this, smiled embarrassedly, and then said, "I just don't like the law, but my father always uses my uncle to suppress me." Say that I work as a reporter or editor at a newspaper, and I only make thirty or forty thousand dollars a year. If you go to be a lawyer, the starting salary is at least 70,000 or 80,000. Ten years later, a journalist's annual salary will rise to eight or nine thousand at most, and a decent lawyer will earn at least four or five hundred thousand. Dad also said that his uncle's annual salary has exceeded his, but he still works three years earlier than his uncle. ”
"So what do you think?" I asked again. "Me! I still love to write!" Jiahui replied.
Then she asked me, "What do you think of all this my father said, do you think my father's words make sense?"
Jiahui's question really made me not know how to answer for a while.
Because on the one hand, as an international student, I can understand what her father said. In the years that I have come to the United States to study, I have worked in more than thirty types of work, and I know the hard work of part-time work, the difficulty of making money, and what going to Harvard Law School means to a person's future. Seriously, if I had been given another chance to choose my profession, I might have studied law.
JiaHuishang is young, has not yet tasted the hardships of life, and is full of longing and dreams for life. She could neither fully understand her father's good intentions, nor could she fully appreciate the hardships and grievances that her father had endured over the years. She treats the profession of lawyer and doctor as "your boy's business," which clearly downplays the practical significance of both jobs. Jiahui's father was a successful person in American society, and his words were heartfelt. Indeed, in American society, being a lawyer and a doctor is the "golden road" into the society of the rich.
I think that if I met Jiahui's father, there would be a lot of common language.
But on the other hand, as a consultant, my first task is to help the inquirer to judge and deal with the current problem on their own. Although I agree with Jiahui's father's teaching, I can't let this understanding affect my attitude toward Jiahui, so that I will become her father's spokesperson at Harvard.
To this end, I want to help Jiahui do two things: First, help her better understand herself and determine the career development direction that suits her abilities and interests; The second is to help her communicate better with her parents, so that each other can see things from each other's perspective. After all, Jiahui is still a girl who is not deeply involved in the world, and I should help her improve her decision-making ability. I should enable her to strengthen her independence through this counseling experience, rather than relying on others.
Thinking of this, I asked Jiahui back: "Then you are torn between respecting your parents and free choice."
How do you want me to answer your question?"
Jiahui sighed and said, "I, of course, I hope you can understand my thoughts, because a person who is forced to do something he does not want to do will always feel bad." When I was a child, my father forced me to learn piano, and I didn't learn well, and until now, when I hear others practicing piano, I still feel a headache. ”
"So you want me to support your idea of becoming a well-known writer in the future, aren't you?" I interjected.
"Yes!" Jiahui replied, a happy smile on her face. Her expression indicated her attitude.
"I can understand your mind very well, but can you understand your father's mind very well?" I then asked Jiahui.
"What are you referring to?" Jiahui looked at me incomprehensibly, and the smile on her face was fleeting.
"I mean, what is the purpose of your father's painstaking persuasion to go to law school, and have you really thought about it?"
"Hmm, I don't want to make more money, like my uncle, to make everyone envious." Jia Hui pouted.
"That's all?" I asked again.
Jia Hui raised an eyebrow and said, "What else can there be?" To tell the truth, sometimes I wonder if my father begged me to go to law school and become a lawyer because I was afraid that I would not earn enough money to spend in the future, so I would ask him for money. ”
"Did you sit down and talk seriously to your dad about why he wanted you to go to law school?" I asked again.
"If you can't hide, why bother to eat yourself?" Jiahui was a little angry.
"You always avoid your father's questions like this, how long can you hide?"
"So what do you say I should do?" I haven't talked about it, but my dad can't listen to what I'm saying between respecting my parents and free choice, what do you tell me to do?" Jiahui was really angry.
Looking at Jiahui's angry look, I said half-jokingly, "Yo, really angry? I know you want to be a writer, but if you don't communicate your thoughts with your dad, how can he understand your mind?"
After a pause, I said, "I mean, if you don't respect your father well and absorb his wisdom in life, how can he in turn respect you and understand your thoughts?"
Jiahui looked at me and tentatively asked, "Then you mean that I should take the initiative to make my father feel that I really want to understand him and want to listen to him, rather than having to accept his request, so that my father will be willing to listen to me more, right?"
"Your understanding is so good." I learned to answer her with a Taiwanese smile.
Jiahui listened and laughed.
In this way, I agreed with Jiahui to take advantage of the spring break of two weeks to go back to talk to my father, mainly to listen to him, and let him explain why he wanted her to go to law school so much, and try not to argue with him. In order to help Jiahui communicate with her father, I also made a cosplay note with her, with her as the father and Jiahui as jiahui, to show her how I can be a good listener.
Jiahui is very much looking forward to the arrival of spring break.
unscramble:
Although home and everything are ancient precepts, they are not the true meaning of life.
The family is the cell of society, and everyone grows up in the family and grows up in society. Home is the threshold that each of us can't cross, from the day you were born, you have an indissoluble relationship with your parents, this fate is the flesh and blood, this is the blood of the blood, this is the most selfless love in the world, this is the most dedicated love in the world.
But love does not mean that it can be all-encompassing, the true meaning of love is suitable for people's growth, so that love can promote the healthy growth of people. "Wangzi Jackie Chan" and "Wangnu Chengfeng" inherit the expectations of countless parents under the heavens, and are also the hope of national prosperity. But we must recognize the metabolism, which is not only the development trend of human health, but also the direction of social continued development. Parents' hopes are good, the children's own struggle is the future of social development, in this sense, parents and children in the career choice of no fundamental conflict of interest, the conflict in the parents dare not believe in the choice of children, this is not only the contradiction of control and anti-control, but also the society's expectations of young people. So, the point of this article is the understanding and trust reached between our older generation and the new generation, and we look forward to such results!
October 29, 2021 #Counselor said #