Humble with Gratitude (#238)

car damage — Power of Hurricane Sandy in Fort Greene, Brooklyn (NYC, NY)

These past ten days have been an exciting, shocking, happy, sad, roller coaster week.

I was very excited to see my mom and have her visit us from New York City (NYC). I’m very close to my mom, and I wanted her to see how quickly my son Ethan is growing up.

Thanks to technology, I’ve sent her videos of Ethan from my iPhone almost daily. We also Skype frequently, but nothing is the same as actually sharing moments with each other.

Once mom came over, we took Ethan to a Halloween party at his Baby Gym and then to Disneyland the next day. Everyone had a great time and memories were being created.

And then…

Hurricane Sandy struck NYC.

Thank goodness neither of my parents were in NYC (My dad was visiting my 90 year old grandma in Hong Kong.) because I cannot believe the damage that was done. The pictures that I saw online were unbelievable.

I grew up in NYC, and it was just shocking to see the damage that was done. Growing up in the “big city,” I always thought that natural disasters only happened to small cities in the Midwest or out west.

NYC is a city full of skyscrapers, and it’s the “city that never sleeps.” I never thought that something like Hurricane Sandy would happen.

Fortunately all my friends are okay, but there are huge inconveniences. It’s been almost a week and many houses still have no power, and it is almost impossible to find a gas (petrol) station that has the power to pump gas to cars. Lines are almost 2 miles long just to get gas!

I never thought that my hometown NYC could be shut down for so long.

My mom was supposed to go back home yesterday, but she canceled her flight because she has no place to live. Her house has no electricity, and it’s kind of tough to sleep in a house with no heat when the temperature gets into the 30s F (0 C) at night.

Be Humble and Grateful

Hurricane Sandy reminds me to stay humble because we can lose it all.

God and nature can take it all from us in seconds.

We should never forget that and always be grateful with what we have.

I know I’ve got problems and you’ve got problems, but at this same moment right now, there is someone way worse than us. Often we don’t need to look too far to see someone who would want to be in our shoes.

That is one of the reasons why I love traveling to less developed countries. It puts my problems in perspective.

But for right now, I don’t need to travel far to see how lucky I am. Hurricane Sandy reminds me of what has happened to my friends back in my hometown.

Be Hungry But Humble

Life is about a balance of being “hungry but humble.” We have to be grateful with what we have but at the same time continue to strive to be better and achieve more.

The hunger is what motivates us to fulfill our unlimited potential and without it, we become lazy and waste our potential to do something big.

But throughout the process, we have to be grateful with what we already have and stay humble regardless of what we have achieved so far.

Trick or Treating with Ethan

On a happier note, one of the highlights for me this past week was going Trick or Treating with Ethan.

Hurricane Sandy made me even more grateful for Halloween this year. I am lucky and blessed not just to be able to go Trick or Treating but also for my son, Ethan. I am getting more and more attached to him and love him so much!

Because my parents were busy when I was growing up, I never really went Trick or Treating as a kid. Last year was only the 2nd time I’ve ever gone, and it was so much fun. If you remember, Ethan was a tiny dragon last year and this year, he was the Cookie Monster!

ethan reading — A little “self development” before Trick or Treating!

Ethan is growing up fast and can run around. Not only that, he can learn things immediately and his vocabulary is impressive. He is learning new words every, day but what is most impressive is how overnight he learned all the animals from his books and can understand a lot of normal conversation now.

I have to thank Kelly’s mom (She helps us out take care of Ethan.) for speaking and engaging with Ethan daily.

My entire family is strictly applying the lessons that I learned from the book Brain Rules for Baby, and it seems to be working great! (For example, we allow no TV, no iPad, etc. until the age of 2). So far, Ethan may have seen about 30 seconds of TV at most. (Well, I guess that is kind of easy since I’m the world’s #1 anti-TV person, and I don’t have a TV at home.)