My Past, Present, and Future

Last night I got a call from one of my brothers from California. We talked a little about something that we might be doing for my father. I won't go into details. It's nothing bad, but just made me think about the circle of life.

We are all born helpless little babies and needed help from our parents or others to survive. With each year, we grow a little bigger physically and a bit more mature in attitude and thinking. And someday, we are fortunate to be considered a wise adult. We hopefully are blessed to have children of our own. Then somehow we get to a stage in our lives where we go back and almost start where we came from. I got sad thinking about it, but realized that it really is just part of the circle of life. Our parents took care of us, we grew up, had our own kids, and eventually we will take care of our parents. And someday, our children will have our grandchildren, and hopefully our children will take care of us too.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr.'s Day. I am happy that we are off of work for a day. However, if I am serious about the day, I have a lot to be thankful. If it weren't for people such as Martin Luther King Jr., I may not have the life I do today. He helped pave the way for the world to be more understanding.

A century ago, there was no such thing as racial equality in this country. Even though the civil war had been fought and slavery was abolished, there was still deep-rooted poor treatment of minorities. Brave people such as Martin Luther King Jr. were still fighting for their rights a century after slavery was abolished. The great thing about all of this is that the world is a new place. We have come a long way.

Even for me, I can see the difference of how the world has changed on the issue of race. I grew up in an age where we were one of the few Asians in the neighborhood. There was so much blatant racism everywhere we went. And now, even though it is not perfect yet, the world is so much more tolerable. If just in my lifetime, I can see the progress that has taken place, it gives me hope that my son will hopefully witness a day when there is no such thing as a racial issue. Afterall, my son comes from a muticultural background. Hopefully his generation will see that we should not fear people's cultural differences but we should embrace what is is to be human.