She was always nice to people. Courteous. Did what people expected of her.
I was trained to do likewise.
I mean, we should always be nice to people right? Keep up good impressions.
Even with strangers, distant relatives, acquaintances...
WRONG...
When I was younger, when I was invited for weddings, even by someone who has lost contact for years, I would still go and give a respectable red packet.
It's what my mum would have done and taught me to do. Be nice and graceful.
After a few times of being invited to weddings by people whom I haven't seen for years, I suddenly woke up.
What the hell...
I haven't seen so and so for 5-10 years, then I go to their wedding and drop $100-$150 for a dinner, then I don't see them again EVER?
WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING?!
And so, I decided not to attend such weddings anymore.
Then I learnt a new technique.
During my wedding, I invited a very distant cousin. She brought 2 kids. So 3 pax and gave a $50 red packet.
I mean, ok some of the folks I invited weren't well to do, so I was expecting some low collections from some folks.
BUT, I know this cousin was doing pretty well.
So I was kinda annoyed with it for sometime, like a couple of years. Cos... well, it's easy to remember these things. $50 for 3 seats is easy to remember.
$50 for 1 seat... maybe still forgivable.
Until I realized... I haven't seen her for years. It's a courtesy call for us to invite her to our wedding, cos we invited her mum, my aunt. I probably won't see her again, probably less than once a year. She doesn't even appear during Chinese New Year.
So I really should be happy that she even gave me $50 for 3 seats. Cos she could easily have given me $4.
She doesn't need to keep up with any impressions. She doesn't care about us. We'll probably never meet again for any reason. Even if we do meet again, we would just be cordial, say "hi", and not talk or interact much.
She really didn't give a damn. Which is logical.
And I've come to realize. That "not giving a damn" is a really good way to interact with some people.
SOME. Not all...
There are the people around us. They are our closer circle.
We care for them, be nice to them, respectful, etc... friend and/or family...
These are the folks who will support us or vice versa if there are any issues in life.
Then there are... those who... MAYBE will help us, family and friends who are slightly further away, we may meet them a couple of times a year, but we still talk and have good gatherings and discussions...
Then there are those absolutely out of our lives. Besides sharing some same blood due to our ancestors, actually, they are no different from strangers.
And personally, I've learnt that we don't really need to care.
My mum would disagree. But whatever.
She would attend the wedding of the kid of her friend, even though she hasn't met the kid before and doesn't really want to attend the wedding, but cos she feels like she has no choice.
We've been invited to the wedding of the kid of my wife's colleague before. We went. It was lame. It was before I learnt this skill...
I feel that the ability to "Not give a damn" is quite hard to learn.
Somehow, many people tend to bother a lot about what people think about them.
Eventually, I learnt that I could do whatever I wanted. And people who wanted to hang around me would adjust to my new "normal" expectations and behaviour.
There are few people who really care about you/me. And it's these people whom we should give the same levels of care back.
There are actually a lot of people who really don't care. And truthfully, I don't care about them either.
And most of the time we don't hang around them, won't meet them much in future.
Like... I don't have any interest in attending class gatherings. I haven't seen them in years. Haven't kept in any form of contact. I don't like a bunch of them due to differing values in life. So... don't go lor.
For me, I find no value in attending such events. I also need to pay money for such events cos they tend to like to go to atas restaurants to have food and drinks.
I'm very contented with my social circle which I built throughout the years. I've kept in contact with people whom I want to keep in contact with, and bothered with people who bothered.
Which, I think, is why I'm unable to entirely immerse myself in life in the US. Cos I spent so much of my life building my life and social circle in SG.
I cultivated the environment, lifestyle, social circle, etc. Adding what added to my overall happiness, removing elements which subtracted from my overall happiness.
And now in the US, I don't have all that. I don't have the life which I so carefully cultivated.
So really... I think "Not Giving A Damn" is a useful skill to attain.
We should bother about those who bother.
And we really shouldn't care less about people who don't care.
After I un-did what my mum taught me when I was younger, I felt a lot more free to do whatever I wanted.
I didn't need to keep up a show for others. I learnt to expect less from people.
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