Mini Motivation #88 - The Scheduled Mourning

In her book, best selling author of Thick Face Black Heart, Chin-Ning Chu, speaks about a time when she was living in China as she was pursuing her studies.

One of the relatives of the landlord had passed away, and in that village, it's a tradition that the death be mourned for few weeks. So everyday from 2pm to 4pm, many visitors would come to the living room, and they would start crying.

The sobs were real, as they recalled what the deeds of the deceased, and the massive contribution he had done in his life. Close friends and family member would share their life stories, shared experiences with him, the lessons learned from him, as they mourned as a group.

As she observed them doing this everyday, the author initially was touched. Until half way through the weeks, she started noticing the heart-warming gesture has turned into one with quite an odd behaviour. Visitors would be chatting and laughing a way a few minutes before 2 o'clock, and the moment the clock struck two, at a snap of an imaginary finger, they would start crying.

The author also noticed that over time, the crying became less intense, and just like how it started, at 4pm sharp, the crying would stop, and they sometimes would resume their laughter.

When I first read the story, I, too, found the scenario very funny. No disrespect to the dead, but how can you mourn for a specific time of the day, interrupting your daily routine, only to resume whatever you were doing sharp on the dot?

And then I realized that it's tradition, it's how things had always been done, and we sometimes disguised the routine as a form of respect, hiding behind the act, instead of questioning it. As an Asian, I grew up with many of such traditions - though not to such an extreme - and I had always been taught to separate rituals from committed acts. The latter requiring me to discern and uncover the reasons of the practice, doubting the intensions, before deciding if it was worth practicing.

It had never been easy, because to the elderly, I wasn't respecting traditions, and was nagged for it. But I had always asked if they could explain why they did what they did. In most cases, they couldn't, and just said it has always been the case, and they were just following what their elders had done.

What about you? Do you struggle with traditions that you question?

Mini Motivation is my own daily strategy to inspire myself. Mostly 3-minute reads.

From Motivation, we gain Inspiration. From Inspiration, we achieve Momentum. And the rest, they say, is history.

Hope it helps nudge you a bit too in the right direction.

Oh it did? Let me know in the comments, and of course an upvote would be a nice motivation for me. :)

Stay awesome!

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Hi there! Thanks for stopping by. I mostly blog about Steemit Success Strategies, business, marketing, entrepreneurship, psychology, community and random thoughts.

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