When is it okay to ignore a problem in life?

Hello again guys, let's continue on the theme of social skills - in my last post, I talked about people who defaulted to becoming the damsel in distress during a crisis instead of taking control of the situation. Today I am going to talk about another reaction to the same kind of situation that is equally wrong, but let's start as always with a true story. Mrs Tan in Singapore found a lump in her breast some years ago and she knew exactly what that meant, but because she went into denial about having to face life with cancer, she promptly just pretended it wasn't there. Life went on as normal for a few years until one day, Mrs Tan fainted at work and her colleagues called an ambulance when they realized she was seriously unwell. When she arrived at the hospital, she was given a thorough medical examination by the doctors who found that her cancer was so advanced that she only had weeks to live. She spent the next few weeks crying at home before she was readmitted to hospital and she died four weeks later. The doctor did tell her, "if you had come to us the moment you found a lump in your breast, we could have started treatment a lot sooner and your chances of recovery would've been much higher. If you ignore it and come to us only when it is terminal, I'm very sorry but there is really nothing we can do for you at this stage." It was obvious why Mrs Tan reacted this way, she did not have the mental fortitude to deal with life with cancer - of course, living with cancer is very difficult and it changes your entire life. However, there isn't an alternative whereby you simply ignore it and just pretend that you don't have cancer - you can't just create an alternate reality where you get to carry on as normal but that was exactly what Mrs Tan did when she chose to ignore the obvious. Oh and did I mention that she was my age (47) when that happened? She didn't need to die at 47 but sadly she paid a very high price for her poor social skills. So today, I am going to talk about people who choose to ignore a problem or situation that they simply don't know how to handle and what a much better approach ought to be. 

Mrs Tan was one of those people who would ignore a problem they couldn't solve - that's not the same as picking your battles. There are battles in life you can choose to avoid and some you definitely ought to avoid, but in the case of Mrs Tan, that battle with cancer was one she couldn't run away from and in this case the only option was to face it bravely. I'm going to use the example of my parents to talk about this issue - you see, I struggle with my parents because they never ever take any responsibility for their mistakes and they would always blame every man and his dog before ever contemplating the thought that they fucked up even though it was pretty obvious that they fucked up. I remember how I once had an argument with my father and apart from blaming me (of course) for the argument, my father blamed the Singaporean government for phasing out Chinese medium education (whereby all key subjects like mathematics, science, history, geography etc are taught in Mandarin rather than English) back in the 1970s. And for a brief moment I thought, hang on, what has this got to do with what we're arguing about? He said that if I had brought up with a Chinese medium education, then I would always respect my father and never question his authority (even when he is a complete retard who is talking rubbish - I added the last bit as I have to point out even to my regular readers just how painfully stupid my father is. So rather than dealing with the fact that I simply refused to say "you're right, I'm wrong" when we had an argument, he made it about something that happened to the Singaporean education system even before I was born, rather than deal with the issue at hand which he didn't have the social skills to resolve. This is a diversion tactic that people like that use - they make it about something else, my father knew he simply couldn't win the argument with me, so he turned it into a rant about the English medium education system and why it is responsible for everything that has gone wrong in his life. Whilst I was never ever going to give him the satisfaction of winning an argument with me, he then chose to argue instead with an entity (ie. the government of Singapore back in the 1970s) and there simply wasn't a representative in the room from that entity to argue with my father. So my father prefers to pick a fight with a punching bag rather than a real boxer, knowing that a punching bag cannot fight back and he could never win against a real boxer. 

As my regular readers will know, I am openly gay. I was born in Singapore but I now live in the UK where I have been married to a man for a long time. I made it a point to come out to my parents before I left Singapore because I didn't want them to think that I was corrupted by Western culture; in fact I have been gay all this time when I was growing up in Singapore and that's just whom I am. A lot of people made the incorrect assumption that my parents are perfectly okay with my sexuality when the truth is somewhat different -they are not gay friendly but at the same time, they don't know how to deal with the issue given that they know so little about the complex issues surrounding sexual identity and sexuality. So they just effectively ignored the issue (much like the way Mrs Tan ignored the lump on her breast), they don't talk about it, they don't think about it and each time it comes up in conversation, they brush it aside as they don't know how to deal with the situation. They don't even have the basic vocabulary or knowledge to talk about gay sexuality, about the kind of relationships that two men can have with each other - they don't know and quite frankly, they really don't want to know at all. They have made zero effort to try to get some more information on the issue by talking to me about it. They would of course prefer it if I got married to a woman and had kids, but the fact that they have zero influence over my decisions is another situation which they didn't know how to handle and they realize that they simply don't know how to get the outcome they want; so they have created a massive blind spot where all their problems that they can't resolve get swept into and they never ever look at what is in that blind spot, even as more and more issues accumulate there over the years. There is really a massive difference between parents who accept their gay children and those who simply choose to ignore the issue. Whilst the outcome may look rather similar on the surface, the underlying reasons are quite different and so that's why it is important to note this key difference; allow me to use this case study to illustrate my point. 

A few years ago, I was at work when this colleague whom we shall call Valerie (not her real name) was visibly upset, I could see that she had been crying. I heard that she had some issues with her personal life and she was going through a very messy divorce - with two children involved, I knew it was going to be messy but at that time, I didn't know Valerie well enough to say anything to her. No, she was from a different department, she was older than me and I just wasn't motivated enough to make a gesture like that. So I pretended I didn't notice what she was going through, especially since she tell me anything. If Valerie had come to me and asked for help, then I am sure I would've been happy to talk to her about what she was going through, but she didn't. Quite by coincidence, I overheard a conversation Valerie had on her mobile phone and she confessed to her friend that she was worried people would judge her for being a bad mother - she had failed to provide a stable family environment for her daughters, given that the divorce had been so stressful she hasn't been able to be the kind of mother she wanted to be for her daughters and she felt very guilty about it. She then said to her friend, "I'm just grateful that nobody at work has said anything about it, that is relief as I'm sure they all know about what's going on, but they have been so understanding, thank goodness." At which point I thought, it's not my silence was this grand gesture of support to condone everything she has done so far - rather, my silence was merely a reflection of the fact that I really didn't care about what Valerie was going through. But she was just grateful that I didn't say anything like, "I don't care what problems you may have at home or in your personal life Val, when you are at work you have to focus on your job. We all have problems, so you must get on with the work you must do today, stop looking at if you're ready to cry at any moment. Save that shit for when you get home later, don't let that affect your work here." Admittedly, I did think that a few times, but I didn't say it and she was grateful for that; but quite honestly, I just didn't care enough to get involved in what was going on in her life. The end result was the same  - however, the devil is in the detail. 

A young gay man might face all kinds of problems from his parents if they are homophobic, so they might want to stop him from going out to meet his friends, they might try to control all the way he communicates on social media or even curtail his internet activities. I remember back in 1998 when my friend Dan came out to his parents whilst at university, his mother freaked out so badly that she made life totally unbearable for him at home - as a result, he was forced to move out. Like he could literally be popping out to the supermarket to buy some ice cream and she would accuse him of going to meet random men for wild orgies. It was such a crazy time and she was completely irrational. I never had to deal with any of that from my parents, in fact even after I came out to my parents (I was in the army then), I was still pretty much free to do whatever I wanted - nothing really changed. Mind you, my life really wasn't that interesting back then - I spent most of my time in the army, but when I had free time, I was either at the gymnastics club or doing French classes. I did have one guilty pleasure: Japanese food, so I might go at some good Japanese food every now and then when I could. If my parents had freaked out like Dan's, then I would not have been allowed to go to gymnastics training or to my French classes, never mind getting some sushi or green tea ice cream. Dan's mother didn't know how to deal with her son's sexuality and she thought she could change the situation by punishing him - she tried to deal with it as if he had just failed an exam at school, "Dan you failed this exam because you were wasting too much time playing with your friends, so you must come straight home after school everyday and study hard, then we can fix the situation." I think she was trying to attribute Dan's sexuality to the fact that he was hanging out with gay people like me and if he wasn't allowed to do that, if he was forced to go to church and spend time with straight Christians who don't believe in sex before marriage, then she could somehow turn her son straight. So I'll just jump to the punchline: it didn't work, Dan is still gay and married to a man today - he no longer speaks with his parents because they won't accept his sexuality even after all these years. 

So once again, we have the unintended consequences of my parents shoving my sexuality into a blind spot - Dan's parents are white and British, yet he was insanely jealous how my parents seemingly did not react at all to my sexuality as if they were just totally cool about it all. I had to explain to Dan that it wasn't as if my parents were so progressive that they were gay-friendly, rather they were just paralyzed by an inability to deal with the situation into complete inaction, which actually wasn't a bad outcome when you compare it to Dan's situation. After all, Dan's parents tried to change his sexuality through religion and that only drove him away - I am grateful that my parents didn't try to do anything as stupid as that. Ironically, them being paralyzed by indecision into inaction yielded a far better outcome for everyone involved, especially when we compare things to Dan's family's situation But I would hardly call this an ideal situation because this approach has left me very distant from my family - there is a big price to be paid for this lack of conflict, I don't speak to my parents anymore now and they have no idea what I am doing with my life. Let's take another example whereby my parents chose not to get involved in but is a bit less controversial than my sexuality - my regular readers will know that I am a polyglot who is fluent in 7 languages but gets by in 25 languages. My parents have zero interest in learning any kind of foreign languages beyond that they already know, I don't expect them to follow in my footsteps but I was hoping for them to at least take note of the effect it has had on me. You see, my parents are culturally very Chinese and that's mostly because they are limited by their language abilities as they speak Chinese mother tongues: my father's first language is Hakka, followed by Mandarin though he can also speak Hokkien and Cantonese, he can only manage very basic English. My mother's mother tongue is Hokkien, whilst her English is functional, she sees it as a tool for her to use to navigate her way through life rather than a language for her to process her thoughts, ideas and identity. Thus this situation means that their cultural identity is by default, as they do not possess the requisite language skills to even begin to access another language - I need to point out that their situation is rather typical of Chinese people of that generation.

However, in my case, since I can indeed speak many languages (7 of them fluently, but I get by in 25 languages) this has meant that I do not feel the need to connect to my Chinese cultural roots given that I am able to access cultures from so many different countries in the world with my linguistic prowess. I am thus able to compare and contrast what I observe in Chinese cultures with what I see in other places, but my parents can't even begin to do that - they only have one frame of reference when it comes to the way they form their cultural identity as they are only able to access one culture. This is why I never felt particularly Chinese and I am actually in a really privileged position to be able to gain such insights into a large number of different cultures this way, I have greatly benefited from this unique experience and have used this knowledge to grow into the person I am today. I pick and choose aspects of cultures that I like and admire from all over the world rather than by default, identifying as Chinese. The people who are able to appreciate this aspect of my character tends to be other people who are quite similar - I have a friend in Brussels who speaks five languages fluently and we have both used this unique combination of being multilingual and multicultural in the way we conduct our business. By the same token, one of my business partners in Luxembourg can speak six languages fluently so there's that sense of mutual respect when we work together. But my parents have no idea what it is like to be able to speak so many languages, they are usually struggling to express themselves and are inarticulate even in their own mother tongues and thus we have this situation whereby my business partners have far more respect for me than my own parents because my parents simply have no framework or reference to process the way I have incorporated this unique ability into the kind of businessman I have become. So what do they do with something they do not understand? Well, they did what Mrs Tan did when she found a lump in her breast - they ignored it. They are probably aware that I am good with languages but they have no made any effort to try to even imagine how this has impacted my personal development and growth over the years - they have chosen to shove it all into a blind spot with everything else they don't understand. I know some of you may ask me, does it really matter, that they do not understand this aspect of your life? Let me explain.

Imagine if I had an accident and my eyes were damaged to the point where I became completely blind - that inability to see would completely change the way I can function as a human being, from the kind of work I can do to earn a living to the way I do sports to the way I even do basic every tasks like making a meal; everything would be so completely different from the way things were before I had lost my sight. If that had happened to me, I wouldn't expect my parents to take care of me if I became blind but I would hope at least that they would be aware of the challenges that I would face as a blind person trying to relearn everything I took for granted like going to the supermarket to get some snacks. I will have every right to be frustrated and angry if they simply ignored the fact that I had gone blind as they do not have any information or knowledge about the matter. By the same token, having learnt so many languages over the years, it has had a massive impact on the way I see the world and the kind of person I have become; yet my parents have chosen to ignore that and their only frame of reference is the child that I was in Singapore - but that child is so unrecognizable given that I have changed so much from that point after having learnt all of those languages after the age of 19 as an adult. The people who do make the effort to get to know me and understand the person I am today will be rewarded with a much closer relationship to me; modestly aside, according to my business partners, I am one of the most fascinating people you could meet in this industry given that my language skills have enabled me to make so many friends and operate in different markets all over the world. It is a sad shame that my own parents are not even aware of that one aspect of my character which has made me stand out in the business world. Ironically this is not even out of malice to spite me (by deliberately choosing to ignore an accomplishment which I am so proud of), but rather this is just a result of them doing exactly what Mrs Tan did when she found that lump in her breast. They stumbled upon something unfamiliar, that they had never encountered before so their default response is simply to ignore it no matter what might be the consequences of ignoring it like that. Mrs Tan died as a result and today, my parents have no idea who the hell I am as I had gone down this path which has changed me so much, but my parents have simply chosen to ignore that big change. 

I tried to speak to my sister about this recently and her response left me disappointed as she laughed and said, "I don't imagine they know what is going on in your life, they really don't know or care what happens in mine as well, it's not just you, but they have chosen to ignore all their children." The next part was something I disagreed with my sister with: why would they do that? Why bother to have three children only to neglect and ignore them then? If you are not interested in having children, then fine, don't have any - but it's the equivalent of paying a lot of money to go to an all you can eat Japanese buffet, declare that you hate Japanese food only to drink the water there. It all made very little sense to me. My theory was that my parents really hate each other and thus having kids was the worst mistake under those circumstances, as each parent saw a bit of the spouse they hated so much in the child and each child was a painful reminder that they really married the wrong person, but whoops because they've already had children it was too late to get a divorce to get out of that miserable marriage. My sister disagrees and she was the one who postulated the less controversial theory of them simply being paralyzed by their inability to comprehend something that was so far out of their comfort zone that they defaulted to Mrs Tan ignoring that lump on her breast - so whether it was me coming out to them that I am gay or me telling them that I have this extraordinary talent to learn foreign languages they simply put all that in the same category of "stuff I don't understand and shall ignore as I don't want to take the time and effort to try to figure this out" and this is a rather common behaviour by people who are simply not that highly educated. Sure they can spend a lot of time feeling bad for not being more intelligent, knowledgeable and educated, or they can choose to ignore that problem by shoving all of those things into a blind spot so they can just get on with life. I have seen this kind of behaviour in many people and it is not necessarily a sign that someone is just too stupid to deal with the situation, but it may be another tactic that completely rational people will choose to use, when dealing with very difficult situations in life. 

When I was tutoring my nephew and preparing him for his A level exams in economics, I had to teach him a very important and useful tactic to use during the exam - you need to first answer the questions that you know the answers to, prioritize your time that way and leave the questions which you are not sure about until the very end. He used to make this mistake whereby he would attempt to answer those questions anyway but because he wasn't quite sure what the answers were, he would often write a lot, way too much because he was throwing everything into the answer and hoping that something in that wall of text might score a point or two. However, this was not a productive use of his time as it had become pure guesswork at that point. I would rather he spent more time crafting quality answers for those questions that he was a lot more confident about than to waste any time with this kind of guesswork in an exam, as we needed an effective strategy that would maximize his scoring potential. Now what I am describing here is just common sense of course, you need to focus on the things in life which will give you the best possible results and thus by that token, yes you are allowed to ignore the things in life where you will fail at. Thus I told me nephew that if he has to leave a question unanswered in the exam, that's actually perfectly fine as long as he is spending that time crafting a much better answer for those questions which he is indeed capable of answering well. So could it be that by the same token, my parents are simply being quite rational in choosing to ignore aspects of my life (my sexuality, my language abilities etc) that they simply don't understand and focusing on the issues in their own lives that they can make sense of? So are they really just doing exactly what I have instructed my nephew to do during his exam in order to get the best possible outcome? Or is there a point where you have to simply say, "if you want to have a child, you must then be prepared to assume the full responsibility of a parent and you don't have the right to ignore difficult and confusing issues that you simply don't understand - you don't get to behave like an ostrich burying its head in the sand the moment you encounter a problem that is difficult to resolve, that is not acceptable at all, as all parents need to be ready to make the effort when it comes to their own children as simply giving up like that without even trying would inevitably have many long term consequences." 

So there you go, that's it from me on this issue, what do you think? Have you ever met someone like Mrs Tan who paid a high price for simply choosing to ignore a problem? Why do some people react to problematic situations by simply ignoring them or being paralyzed into inaction? How would you react if say you were in that situation with Valerie, my former colleague who was going through a divorce - would you simply choose to ignore the situation or would you try to be supportive to her? Have you ever encountered a situation when a person ignoring the problem (such as my parents with my gay sexuality) has actually led to better outcome? Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.