What if there is no happy ending, what do we do then?

Hi guys, this is the draft for a recent podcast that I had posted some days ago and if you prefer you can listen to it by clicking this link. So some of you may know that my father is dying of cancer and I made the decision to go see him in September as my sister told me that his body has taken quite a lot of punishment as a result of the radiotherapy. I had been estranged from my father for a long time, I barely spoke to him for many years and all communication ceased about 3 years ago. But I suppose something clicked when my sister asked me to come and I booked the flights, though she was very apprehensive because she feared a worst case scenario - she knew that my father wasn't coping well with the emotional trauma of being told "this is how it ends, this is how you're going to die". I was warned repeatedly not to expect a happy ending or any kind of reconciliation if I went back to Singapore to see my father and spoiler alert, she was right. It takes two hands to clap if any kind of resolution or reconciliation was to happen and my father was never ever going to play ball. So I'm going to share with you what I did, what my reaction was and how I chose to deal with a situation whereby one simply doesn't get a happy ending, because that's just life. Real life is messy, that is just what we have to deal with and one would be naive to expect a happy ending in such a situation - I am sharing what I have gone through here with you here because I believe some of you may face equally difficult situations as well if life and I hope that my decision making process may give you some insight about your options when it comes to dealing with this kind of messy situations where there could never be a happy ending. 

To begin with, what is a happy ending in this case? Well, it would involve my father recognizing the reasons why we were estranged in the first place - I had a miserable childhood in Singapore because we were such a poor, working class family and my parents never noticed that I resented being poor, I wanted to become successful so I didn't end up poor like them.  I refused to accept the Asian method of dealing with this situation by offering one's family unconditional acceptance. So I moved as far away as I could to Europe the moment it was possible when I turned 21. That was 28 years ago and I have had one hell of an adult life in Europe. I have tried so many different jobs in different industries, I have had successes and failures, I have had the most incredible adventures and made some wonderful friends, I have offended people and made enemies, I have won people over and impressed them with what I've got. I have found new passions, I have had so much joy exploring my limits and though it all, I have grown, matured and evolved as a person. The fact that you're hear listening to my story means that I have this privilege to share with you some incredible stories from the epic adventures I have had to the important lessons I have learnt along the way. I would like to thank you for your attention and giving me this opportunity to share with you because my father has denied me this opportunity. Why? It's not what you think actually and the answer might actually surprise you, it was something I kinda knew but I think it a case of pointing out the elephant in the room. 

Here's some context for you: my father is uneducated and it's not like oh he didn't go to university, no, my father is barely literate and did a very working class job all his life before retirement. I hate to kick a man who is down but he is what most people would call stupid and it's not like "oh he isn't academically inclined", no he is plain stupid. I'm sorry for being this blunt but that's the ugly truth and I don't wanna dance around the issue or beat around the bush. He never had any ambition to improve his lot in his life, he sucked at school as a student and kinda just accepted the fact that he was never good at learning so the only sensible option for him was to pick a simple, working class job that any idiot could do. I am now 49 and I've spent all my adult life learning new skills to try to improve myself whilst my father never ever attempted to learn anything as an adult. We don't get to pick our parents and that's just the father I got - I guess my reaction to that is that I'm grateful I didn't turn out to be stupid. My mother isn't exactly a genius but she is a bit more intelligent than him, but only a bit. And so by some freak of genetics, I turned out to be a triple scholar with a scarily high IQ and whilst my father simply refused to learn anything new, I keep teaching myself new stuff all the time - I speak ten languages fluently and get by in 30. Learning is fun and a very rewarding process for me whilst for people like my father who simply don't have the mental capacity to learn anything new, trying to learn anything is a painful, horrible experience. It simply isn't fun so he doesn't ever bother. So, how does someone like my father deal with the fact that his son is a high achiever? How do we reconcile that difference? Well, the answer is simple: he doesn't want to. It is called creating a blind spot and shoving all your problems in there. 

So for example, my father can't play the violin and in his mind, he reckons that it is a useless, irrelevant skill since he never needed it to earn a living. Thus if he meets a great violin maestro, he isn't impressed at all despite the fact that this maestro may have great skills that have won the admiration of millions around the world. I can't play the violin either but I have the imagination to think, wow wouldn't it be great to be able to play the violin like that. I don't claim to be an expert on classical music but I am curious enough to find out enough about what successful classical musicians do in order to express this admiration for their craft. My father simply doesn't do that and he lacks the curiosity to find out more about others: here's the reason why: we have to look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Uneducated, simple people like my father are only concerned with the most basic needs that humans need to stay alive like having enough food and water, shelter, health and safety from harm. Now something like music would appeal to one's higher order needs for self-esteem, a sense of identity, respect and creativity; it is a luxury to be able to contend with those issues. If you look at refugees fleeing a war zone, they are often only concerned with their most basic needs as they flee an immediate danger of getting killed. So they would think about where their next meal is coming from, where they can sleep tonight, where they can get clean drinking water, where might the next attack or drone strike happen, whether there are any wild animals that may attack them - these are vital issues that can determine whether or not they will live another day. Whilst my father doesn't live in a war zone, somehow he has that same mentality whereby he is only capable of thinking about his most basic needs according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs and he is totally incapable of even understanding that other people like me do have higher order needs and how important those higher order needs are. Such is the challenge dealing with someone so autistic that they cannot even begin to acknowledge that other people might have a totally different point of view. 

Allow me to contrast that with an incident that brought me great joy last weekend. I was at a James Bond convention in London and because I was the star of the reality TV spin off 007: Road to a Million, many people recognized me at the event and wanted to talk to me, take photos etc. But there was one interaction with a young man called Callum that totally stood out for me, he asked me if my left knee is better and I was shocked: he knew so much about a knee injury I had sustained for months ago. He then convinced me that he had been following all my posts on Instagram so that's how he found out. I was both shocked and touched that a complete stranger would do that and he made me feel like a celebrity in that moment - it meant so much to me. Now would someone like my father ever be able to understand why that moment was so precious to me? No, because what Callum did for me was he satisfied one of my higher order needs: to feel loved, to feel appreciated, to be noticed, to be respected and somehow, that's a concept that people like my father simply don't understand. So the logical conclusion from this is simple: I will seek friends like Callum to satisfy my higher order needs whilst accepting that my father will never be in any kind of position to satisfy those needs. I have to give up any notion that my father will take any interest in my achievements, let alone be proud of me because this is all down to the fact that my father is so uneducated and stupid that he doesn't even have the foggiest clue about what higher order needs are. My sister was worried that I would be disappointed if I went to see my dying father and didn't get any kind of resolution from him regarding the way my father simply takes zero interest in what I have done with my career. The way my father sees it, as long as I have enough to eat, I have a roof over my head, I have money to pay to see a doctor should the need arise - that's more than enough and the rest is simply unimportant details. He doesn't realize that this total lack of interest in the "unimportant details" like what I have done with my career is quite hurtful. After all, most parents out there would be delighted if their kids achieved half as much as I did yet my father can't even be asked to take a look at that and derive some kind of satisfaction or joy at his children doing well. For him, it is all just unimportant and irrelevant - he simply isn't interested at all because he doesn't understand. 

Now you might ask me at this point: well have you tried explaining it to him? Well yes I did and I regret having tried. It started quite innocently, my father made some comment about my nephew's education and I pointed out to him: you never went to university, you have retired for such a long time, you have no idea what young people face out there today. Instead of making wild guesses about what my nephew might need to enter the working world, why don't you ask me? I'm right here sitting beside you, not only did I go to university, I was a triple scholar. I have a successful career, I have hired and fired many people over the years, I know exactly how all this works. Would it hurt so much to simply ask me for my opinion? I am your son after all. My father reacted really badly to that - he does this thing. He knows he doesn't have the intellect to win any kind of argument with me, so instead he just raises his voice and plays the cancer card. He accused me of being a bad son who hasn't done enough to care for him when he was dying of cancer. He said that my sisters have spent sleepless nights at his bedside when he was in hospital whilst I have barely lifted a finger. He simply changes the subject and claims that he wished I had never come to visit because all I have done was upset him when he is dying. He then screams so loud that my sister and mother beg me to leave the room before my father has a heart attack from all that rage. This is his way of "winning the argument", he is too stupid to come up with a cogent argument and use reason to convince the other parties, so he cooks himself up into such a state of rage that others around him fear he will have a heart attack. So this is exactly what happens when I make any kind of effort to explain to my father what I need from him - he isn't interested at all in mending the relationship with me. He isn't interested at all in hearing what my point of view is or what I need and I know why he is like this. I know I have left it way too late to try to mend my relationship with my father - yeah he is still alive now, but he is dying. The cancer is terminal and there is no cure, his death is imminent and this is how the story ends for him. This begs the question then: what would you do if you knew that your death was imminent? Would you try to make things right with your family and friends if you knew time was running out? I have a different point of view to offer. 

Some years ago I visited Abu Dhabi in the UAE and I had to use an local smart card called the Halifat Card for public transport. You can't purchase tickets with cash, you can't use a credit card, you simply had to get one of those Halifat cards to use public transport. It is a very common concept used all over the world whereby the smart card has a store of value and thus all you have to do is tap in and tap out for each journey without having to purchase a ticket each time. As I was nearing the end of my stay in Abu Dhabi, I didn't want to leave  with a lot of value left on my Halifat card and so I would top up the minimum amount. If I was going to be in Abu Dhabi for a couple of weeks, I would gladly put a much larger amount on the Halifat card. I still have that Halifat card and I have no idea if I will ever go back to Abu Dhabi in the future. Hence if my father knew that the end if imminent and there was little point in putting in any effort into mending that relationship with me given that he isn't going to be around for another decade or so to enjoy that new relationship, his mindset and approach to the issue is exactly like the way I wanted to keep the bare minimum value on my Halifat card. He only wants to put in the bare minimum effort into this relationship and he simply isn't motivated enough to want to try any harder given his imminent death. You could argue that this is a selfish move on his part - after all, whilst he may be saving himself some effort from refusing to mend this relationship with me, I am the one who has to live on long after his death, knowing that my own father had refused to make that effort for me, to try to offer me that peace of mind on the issue. Bur then again, as I have pointed out, my father is severely autistic and unable to see things from another person's point of view and I have accepted that. He has never made the effort to even acknowledge that another person might have a different point of view, so he is not going to change even if he is dying. I must point out though that this adamant refusal to take into account the point of views of others is hurting the people in his family - I can deal with it, I can hop on a plane and go back to London easily. It is my sisters and mother who are bearing the brunt of his autistic behaviour and they are the ones suffering the most as a result of my father's behaviour. I do wonder how they cope with it as it is brutal. It is nasty. Let's not sugarcoat it. They will actually feel relief when my father finally passes away. 

My sister asked me if I can forgive him for that and I said to her that forgiveness is the wrong word. I prefer the French term laissez tomber (literally: let it drop). Allow me to share with you an example of when I decided to deploy this laissez tomber concept to explain what it means in case you don't speak French. This was a long time ago when they used to give out plastic bags in the UK, they have since stopped doing that. I went to my local pharmacy to make a small purchase and there was a very old lady at the till who had just started that job. She was very slow and unfamiliar with what she had to do, but she had managed to process the payment and now she wanted to put the item I had purchased in a plastic bag with the receipt for it. However, she fumbled with the plastic bag, unable to detach one from a stack of plastic bags and then the till jammed when she tried to get it to print a receipt. It was a comedy of errors, as everything that could go wrong went wrong. She said to me, "oh dear, I have to ask my colleague for help with this, please bear with me." At this point I thought, no I don't need a plastic bag, I don't need the receipt and I don't want to wait for you to resolve this. Now if I was in France, I would have told her at that point, "laissez tomber" and walked out. But since this was London, I said to her, "it's okay, don't bother, I have to go." Did I forgive the old lady for her poor service? Not really, she didn't actually apologize to me for taking so long so I can't offer forgiveness without having first received an apology. But did I begrudge her for what happened? No, it wasn't a big deal. I wasn't upset with her, I got what I needed from the pharmacy and so I left, it was fine. I just wanted to get on with my life at that point, I certainly wasn't interested in punishing that old lady. As far as I was concerned, she was someone else's problem the moment I had left the pharmacy. Now that's the difference between forgiveness and this French concept of laissez tomber. I chose to leave the store on my terms, it was my decision, I refused to let that old lady dictate when I could leave the store or whether or not I needed to leave the store with my purchase in a plastic bag with the receipt. I didn't give her what she wanted, she would've liked me to have stayed with her so she could've done things her way but so be it. She might have even been glad that I had chosen to do that so she wasn't under pressure to deal with the situation. 

So with my father, I have simply accepted the fact that he is an uneducated, stupid simpleton - this is nothing new, I have known this all my life. Please, I want you to know that I am not harbouring any notions of a good father and son relationship - this was never the case in the past and this is certainly not the case now. I know my father is uneducated and very working class, I had always felt embarrassed and deeply ashamed about him, I lied about him and I never wanted my classmates to ever meet him just in case I got mocked as a result. My father had an older brother who was actually a rich and successful businessman and once I even lied to some strangers by pretending that my uncle was my father so I didn't have to reveal just how poor and working class my family was. My father's existence was just something that I swept under the carpet for most of my youth in Singapore and when I left Singapore to move to Europe, well I never made any effort to try to fix that situation. No, I never told my father how embarrassed I was of him, how I felt he was a complete loser compared to some of the other fathers of my peers back in the day - what was the point? Such was the situation, it is what it is, my father was never going to change and that's just the way it has always been all these years. I know my father would react by calling me an ungrateful son if I didn't show him unconditional respect and whilst I think he might realize that I don't respect him at all, it is just one of those issues that he has chosen to shove into a massive blind spot and that's where those issues will stay until the day he dies. Oh please - there's no love, no respect, nothing in that relationship between me and my father today. There's nothing left but some pity that he is suffering like that because of the cancer. On my part, there is compassion, sympathy and a desire to help but allow me to compare this to something I witnessed last night. I saw a lady fall off her bike and hit her head on the road, there was a deep gash on her forehead and she was bleeding. I ran over to help immediately because she was hurt. Yes she is a complete stranger but I will always react like that because it's the right thing to do. My father is dying of cancer and is in a lot of pain and emotional anguish, I'm reacting the same way I reacted to that lady who fell off her bike. It's not a question of whether he deserves my help or not, it's just the right thing to do. 

So I went to Singapore. I tried and it didn't work out. But just like with the old lady in the pharmacy, I have decided to laissez tomber and move on with my life. This is actually an empowering decision because people often get hurt when they get disappointed by the mistakes and failures of others. I think the only way to deal with this kind of situation is to be totally pragmatic and leave your emotions at the front door. Some of us hold on to a notion that it would be nice for our parents to be proud of us, especially if we have managed to achieve a lot. But I have realized that if something simply isn't going to happen then holding on to any hope that it will happen is simply a completely illogical choice. Instead, I must accept the hand that I've been dealt and decide what to do next - the same way I chose to walk out of that pharmacy without asking that old lady for her permission or opinion whether or not that was okay with her. This is a choice I am making for myself, on my terms and nobody else has any say in it. Thus regardless of how my father chooses to behave in this situation, I have decided not to allow him to hold me ransom by expecting a certain outcome. I have tried to ask him to show interest in my life, he has flatly refused and thus I have to apply a simple rule that I learned in sales. If the person you've spoken to has not expressed any interest in engaging with you, just move on to someone else who is interested - there is no point at all in flogging a dead horse. Wasting any time with someone who will never buy from you is just stopping you from making your next sale and we only get paid commission on the sales we make, not the time we waste. 

I have spoken to a lot of people about the situation I faced and people often struggle to find the right words to respond - that's okay as there is no standard right answer for this. I'd like to share with you what I liked and what made me feel better, so you know what to say to people you meet in similar situations in the future. A common theme seems to be that when Asian or Singaporean people hear my story, they kinda just roll their eyes and say, yeah that's Asian parents for you, I'm not surprised at all. But I abide by the principle of two wrongs don't make a right and by extension, ten wrongs don't make a right and a billion wrongs still don't make a right. I am frustrated by how some people imply or suggest that just because this kind of behaviour is widespread and common that it somehow becomes acceptable or even normal. I remember the relief I felt when a friend told me in so many words, "yeah it sucks, it totally sucks, I hate it." Finally, I thought, someone had expressed some empathy about the way I feel. No I am not looking for a fight, I don't want an argument about Asian culture or Asian parenting but a bit of empathy goes a long way in making me feel better about the situation I have found myself in. I have encountered some people who acknowledge that the situation is terrible but have responded that I have no right to complain since everyone else is not complaining as well and suffering in silence and complaining will no resolve or change anything, so I should shut the hell up and suffer in silence. Look it is okay if you don't want to offer me any empathy - that's your choice, but please don't tell me that I don't have the right to seek it from others who are willing to offer it to me. Thank you for reading.