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After my dad died, we found the love letters

jenn.site

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Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#4
> “He wasted his entire life, my mom said to me, the evening we found the love letters. His entire life, and mine as well.”

What a burden of expectations to lay on both yourself & your own family.

I’m glad the author was able to put those aside & live her own life more authentically than her father did.

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#8
I love all the unexpected twists in this. And it’s very beautifully written and sobering.

> the most important thing was to find xin fu in life, not to live your life in accordance to the expectations of anyone else

That is why I write all of my code in uncommented C. Your expectation of a maintainable program that doesn’t segfault all the time is just your expectation.

> he wasted his entire life, my mom said

In some ways, she did too by listening to her mother and not just getting divorced as she had wanted to. But I recognize that going against your family’s core beliefs is easier said than done.

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#9
"He wasted his life", sounds so dramatic, but what does it really mean. It's just an emotion like regret triggered by made up standards. If things were different and in the end they would have said "he lived his best life", what difference would it make except a few different words, differently arranged.

Not sure what my point is, but perhaps being too much into Buddhism and similar things made me lose touch with more normal human emotions.. or I live in regret myself and push it aside, ha.

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