Freewill and Love...

Learning from Bruce Almighty

Today's my last day in my on shore assignment.  Work-wise, I was able to talk to a lot of people.  Generated new ideas of improving almost all areas in my work.  Personally, my long wait was over and that I'm excited to see my girls.

While waiting for my laundry to finish, I opened the tv and just happened to catch Bruce Almighty again.  And this idea struck me... "How can you make someone love you by respecting his/her freewill?"

In the movie, it was all about Bruce getting all God's powers.  But it has a limitation... you can never use it to make people love you... because of freewill.

Same is true with parenting.  Now that Amanda is still a toddler, I know it's easy for her to love us as her parents.  It is a given that all of us, when we're young, we all go to our parents since we're highly dependent on them.  Maybe 10 years down the road, things will change. She maybe fully independent and as all parents may fear, we don't have control if she'll love us back..

So then came my thought, how can we make our kids go back and love us?

It was and always will be a work in progress.  I think that if I could just plant tiny seeds of love everyday in what ever way that she may or may not feel may be the answer.  Like, when we're apart, we always say I love you. Or simply take time to appreciate her crooked that are supposedly straight line drawings. Or drop a conversation with an adult to just listen to her telling "look at my minion castle"  

Little things, when compounded might just be the way to raise loving kids.  Just pure theory for now, after all I'm just a rookie dad.