WEBVTT 00:00:27.640 --> 00:00:31.199 So for the longest time, I blame my dad for... 00:00:31.399 --> 00:00:35.140 that happened with my family. And I hated him, 00:00:35.219 --> 00:00:39.200 like deeply hated him for everything I saw in 00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:43.399 him. I have to probably backtrack quite a bit 00:00:43.399 --> 00:00:45.159 to explain where all this is coming from. You 00:00:45.159 --> 00:00:49.640 know, it began with another thing, but I'm actually 00:00:49.640 --> 00:00:53.399 not quite sure when it actually began. My guess 00:00:53.399 --> 00:00:56.179 is that it must have developed over the years 00:00:56.179 --> 00:01:00.640 and just got worse and worse. There were several 00:01:00.640 --> 00:01:03.719 things that I do know contributed to my perception 00:01:03.719 --> 00:01:07.819 of my dad and my feelings towards him. So if 00:01:07.819 --> 00:01:10.840 I had to say probably the earliest memories of 00:01:10.840 --> 00:01:14.980 when I started to at least dislike my dad, it 00:01:14.980 --> 00:01:18.359 was probably all the way back in maybe an elementary 00:01:18.359 --> 00:01:21.260 school. He tended to, at an early age, he tended 00:01:21.260 --> 00:01:24.040 to have a fairly authoritative approach to disciplining 00:01:24.040 --> 00:01:27.760 at home. What I mean by that is that he tended 00:01:27.760 --> 00:01:32.680 to value obedience and rarely explained himself 00:01:32.680 --> 00:01:35.939 or the reasons for the rules he had. In fact, 00:01:35.980 --> 00:01:39.239 even as a young kid, I remember the rules not 00:01:39.239 --> 00:01:41.239 making any sense. I wanted the rules to make 00:01:41.239 --> 00:01:45.519 sense. But he didn't explain himself. He just 00:01:45.519 --> 00:01:48.620 said, you know, this is, I'm the, you know, dad 00:01:48.620 --> 00:01:52.060 in the family. I'm the parent here. You know, 00:01:52.079 --> 00:01:54.739 what I say goes, and you just need to abide by 00:01:54.739 --> 00:01:56.439 it, and it's important for you to learn how to 00:01:56.439 --> 00:02:03.319 obey. The best reason I would get from him is 00:02:03.319 --> 00:02:06.560 that he's doing it for my own good, though I 00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:08.560 didn't sometimes understand exactly what that 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:12.000 meant, and that I might not get it now, but I 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:16.520 will later. He was always very quick to kind 00:02:16.520 --> 00:02:18.120 of explain that, you know, he doesn't expect 00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:19.539 me to understand anything now because I'm just 00:02:19.539 --> 00:02:22.080 a kid. But eventually it'll start making sense 00:02:22.080 --> 00:02:24.360 as I get older and become a parent myself oftentimes. 00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:28.759 He was also heavy -handed with the physical disciplining. 00:02:28.900 --> 00:02:31.439 So it was pretty common in, I guess, a lot of 00:02:31.439 --> 00:02:34.000 Asian households. We would share war stories 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:36.439 about how we would be punished. But I think his 00:02:36.439 --> 00:02:39.060 punishment of choice was holding our hands up 00:02:39.060 --> 00:02:44.099 in the air, holding a chair above our heads for 00:02:44.099 --> 00:02:48.159 the longest time. Getting on our knees and just 00:02:48.159 --> 00:02:50.360 staying in that position, very uncomfortable 00:02:50.360 --> 00:02:54.680 and sometimes painful after a while. But that 00:02:54.680 --> 00:02:57.360 was only in the early days, maybe up to like 00:02:57.360 --> 00:03:01.419 third or fourth grade. After that, he would actually 00:03:01.419 --> 00:03:05.080 spend time trying to explain the reason for the 00:03:05.080 --> 00:03:09.500 disciplining. I think I just didn't respect his 00:03:09.500 --> 00:03:12.060 reasons for the rules or punishments. Like, his 00:03:12.060 --> 00:03:14.199 reasons just didn't make sense to me, right? 00:03:14.300 --> 00:03:17.479 Like, he could try to explain it, but the way 00:03:17.479 --> 00:03:18.800 that he tried to connect the dots just didn't 00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:20.719 make any sense, right? I just thought too many 00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:24.139 of his reasons relied too much on some sort of 00:03:24.139 --> 00:03:27.280 theological or cultural commitment. Maybe that's 00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:29.759 why I didn't acknowledge those reasons. Maybe 00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:32.120 because I didn't have the same sort of commitment, 00:03:32.419 --> 00:03:34.500 right? So I think some of the times the reason 00:03:34.500 --> 00:03:36.930 he would give is like, It says so in the Bible, 00:03:37.050 --> 00:03:39.789 right? And it's like, well, it's saying so in 00:03:39.789 --> 00:03:42.509 the Bible doesn't give me an actual reason for 00:03:42.509 --> 00:03:44.650 the punishment. It just tells me you're following 00:03:44.650 --> 00:03:48.409 orders from somebody else, right? And sometimes 00:03:48.409 --> 00:03:50.349 it was like cultural commitments, like this is 00:03:50.349 --> 00:03:52.349 just how I grew up or this is what I was taught 00:03:52.349 --> 00:03:55.090 or this is what my community and the other parents 00:03:55.090 --> 00:03:58.990 tell me I should do. It's like, that's not a 00:03:58.990 --> 00:04:01.050 real reason. It's just you just following other 00:04:01.050 --> 00:04:06.090 people's orders, right? honestly didn't sound 00:04:06.090 --> 00:04:08.330 in my mind right at the time it didn't sound 00:04:08.330 --> 00:04:10.669 all that different to me than when he would have 00:04:10.669 --> 00:04:13.189 all kinds of other garbage reasons right he's 00:04:13.189 --> 00:04:16.029 such a bunch of wild shit like um i think one 00:04:16.029 --> 00:04:17.649 time he said something about broccoli causing 00:04:17.649 --> 00:04:20.250 cancer and when i challenged him like that doesn't 00:04:20.250 --> 00:04:22.689 make any sense at all how is broccoli causing 00:04:22.689 --> 00:04:26.350 cancer and he would say like oh it was it was 00:04:26.350 --> 00:04:29.139 in the korean newspaper and i was like Who made 00:04:29.139 --> 00:04:31.240 them the authority on anything, right? Like, 00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:34.860 is this a credible newspaper? I mean, I think 00:04:34.860 --> 00:04:37.339 when I heard that, I thought one or two things, 00:04:37.360 --> 00:04:39.860 right? Either the newspaper was just not credible 00:04:39.860 --> 00:04:42.319 and they're just saying irresponsible shit that 00:04:42.319 --> 00:04:48.100 they shouldn't be publishing. Or I, you know, 00:04:48.100 --> 00:04:51.620 thought that maybe my dad just did not. was an 00:04:51.620 --> 00:04:53.939 idiot right like he just believed whatever he 00:04:53.939 --> 00:04:57.839 read or he just had no critical thinking skills 00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:01.480 he just kind of or maybe he just even read it 00:05:01.480 --> 00:05:03.180 wrong i don't know what right but either way 00:05:03.180 --> 00:05:05.819 like none of it made sense to me right so um 00:05:05.819 --> 00:05:08.800 the point is that his justifications for the 00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:11.360 punishments for the rules for the guidelines 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:14.759 for how the household is to operate they always 00:05:14.759 --> 00:05:18.339 sounded a little suspect to me I mean, he was 00:05:18.339 --> 00:05:20.420 essentially telling me something is wrong because 00:05:20.420 --> 00:05:24.319 someone or something said it was, or if I didn't 00:05:24.319 --> 00:05:26.519 see that it's wrong, that I'll just eventually 00:05:26.519 --> 00:05:29.800 get it eventually one day, right? It'll all make 00:05:29.800 --> 00:05:32.819 sense. But none of those actually served as real 00:05:32.819 --> 00:05:34.699 reasons, right? Like if I was somebody who was 00:05:34.699 --> 00:05:38.000 looking for real reasons why the punishment is 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:41.259 there, why the rules are there, right? What is 00:05:41.259 --> 00:05:43.180 it good for? What's the purpose it's serving? 00:05:43.379 --> 00:05:45.500 None of those questions were answered, right? 00:05:47.339 --> 00:05:52.439 I think along with all the theological arguments, 00:05:52.500 --> 00:05:54.279 I think I've mentioned before in other places, 00:05:54.420 --> 00:05:56.500 that we'd have these theological arguments at 00:05:56.500 --> 00:05:59.879 these weekly home Bible studies, right? I just 00:05:59.879 --> 00:06:01.939 would not respect him for his reasoning abilities 00:06:01.939 --> 00:06:05.120 there. I think I just did not have a lot of respect 00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:07.079 for him. And this is at a fairly early age. We're 00:06:07.079 --> 00:06:10.420 talking like late elementary school, early junior 00:06:10.420 --> 00:06:13.699 high. The reason was that I was willing to... 00:06:13.920 --> 00:06:16.560 question every one of his judgments on everything 00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:21.120 um i mean that's what ended up happening like 00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:24.199 if if i don't trust him on anything that he's 00:06:24.199 --> 00:06:29.040 actually saying then i'm going to like actually 00:06:29.040 --> 00:06:31.079 search for real reasons right i would evaluate 00:06:31.079 --> 00:06:35.040 the veracity of the information that he was giving 00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:38.089 and it was on anything like it was Everything 00:06:38.089 --> 00:06:41.509 from what's real, what's actually happening in 00:06:41.509 --> 00:06:44.290 the world, things he claimed he saw in newspapers 00:06:44.290 --> 00:06:50.509 or saw in the news, to just moral judgments, 00:06:50.930 --> 00:06:55.129 theological judgments, judgments on relationships, 00:06:55.589 --> 00:06:59.050 just everything. I just became dismissive of 00:06:59.050 --> 00:07:03.410 everything he said, for better or worse. Now, 00:07:03.410 --> 00:07:08.480 I want to... I kind of level with you here, right? 00:07:08.579 --> 00:07:12.300 This is actually, I think, from what I understand, 00:07:12.379 --> 00:07:15.560 fairly normal for a kid growing up. At some point, 00:07:15.620 --> 00:07:18.240 kids start to question their parents and their 00:07:18.240 --> 00:07:19.839 authority on things. They start to form their 00:07:19.839 --> 00:07:22.500 own thoughts about the world. And, you know, 00:07:22.579 --> 00:07:24.959 this is just a normal part of a child's development. 00:07:26.180 --> 00:07:29.540 And, you know... People have different perspectives 00:07:29.540 --> 00:07:31.500 because they have different lives that they've 00:07:31.500 --> 00:07:33.600 led. And some of the things that my parents would 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:36.100 talk about just didn't fit in with my own experiences, 00:07:36.220 --> 00:07:38.000 right? So there would be disagreements. None 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:40.420 of this is out of the ordinary. I think this 00:07:40.420 --> 00:07:43.360 is all fairly normal for kids to question their 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:50.639 parents. He was, you know, I mean, I knew, I 00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:54.649 think, at a very early age. that my dad and my 00:07:54.649 --> 00:07:56.810 mom, both of them actually, had a fairly skewed 00:07:56.810 --> 00:07:59.250 view of the world. I think my dad was just a 00:07:59.250 --> 00:08:01.269 little bit more insistent on holding on to his 00:08:01.269 --> 00:08:05.850 world perspectives, right, worldview. But I was 00:08:05.850 --> 00:08:08.649 aware fairly early on that he just had a very 00:08:08.649 --> 00:08:11.230 different set of life experiences because he 00:08:11.230 --> 00:08:14.189 was fairly transparent about how it was for him 00:08:14.189 --> 00:08:16.730 growing up, where he grew up. And I think I mentioned 00:08:16.730 --> 00:08:18.930 that in junior high, I was shipped off to Korea 00:08:18.930 --> 00:08:23.120 where I... lived for a couple months actually 00:08:23.120 --> 00:08:27.259 in the home that my dad grew up in right like 00:08:27.259 --> 00:08:30.639 I could see exactly what he experienced and it 00:08:30.639 --> 00:08:34.080 was shockingly so vastly different than what 00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:37.519 I was experiencing growing up so I could tell 00:08:37.519 --> 00:08:40.279 that much of what he saw as quote -unquote the 00:08:40.279 --> 00:08:43.629 right way to engage with others to engage with 00:08:43.629 --> 00:08:45.970 the world, his views on morality, on what's right 00:08:45.970 --> 00:08:47.830 and wrong. These were all heavily influenced 00:08:47.830 --> 00:08:50.330 by his own experience growing up in this rural 00:08:50.330 --> 00:08:53.350 community where everyone knew everyone else. 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:56.299 And it's hard to see that translating to a place 00:08:56.299 --> 00:08:59.360 like Los Angeles, where people didn't really 00:08:59.360 --> 00:09:02.240 know each other, except within these like little 00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:06.240 niche communities, weren't really part of all 00:09:06.240 --> 00:09:08.039 collectively part of the same community and just 00:09:08.039 --> 00:09:10.500 were from all over the place with different backgrounds, 00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:13.340 like a lot of immigrants, a lot of people just 00:09:13.340 --> 00:09:16.399 who came from different states, right? Like they 00:09:16.399 --> 00:09:18.419 just had a different way of living, different 00:09:18.419 --> 00:09:22.679 set of values. So I cut in some slack even early 00:09:22.679 --> 00:09:25.620 on. But I still was fairly firm that I thought 00:09:25.620 --> 00:09:28.240 he was wrong about most things in life, at least 00:09:28.240 --> 00:09:30.860 for me, in the place that we now live with the 00:09:30.860 --> 00:09:33.639 people that we now engage with. None of the things 00:09:33.639 --> 00:09:35.259 that he would say would actually make sense to 00:09:35.259 --> 00:09:38.820 me. But I always cut him some slack and said, 00:09:38.899 --> 00:09:40.840 you know, he's just from a different era and 00:09:40.840 --> 00:09:45.279 a different place, a different time. It's hard 00:09:45.279 --> 00:09:47.559 for him to adjust. It was frustrating that he 00:09:47.559 --> 00:09:50.710 wouldn't adjust. In his mind, he just had a hard 00:09:50.710 --> 00:09:53.490 time kind of adjusting to the reality that there 00:09:53.490 --> 00:09:55.649 is a world beyond the one that he kind of knew 00:09:55.649 --> 00:09:59.289 growing up. So to be honest, if things remained 00:09:59.289 --> 00:10:01.809 in just this space, our relationship probably 00:10:01.809 --> 00:10:05.210 would have had its struggles. But I probably 00:10:05.210 --> 00:10:12.409 would not have had the experience or the level 00:10:12.409 --> 00:10:16.210 of anger and resentment that I actually had towards 00:10:16.210 --> 00:10:21.000 him for so many years. What really derailed our 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:24.559 relationship started early in high school. It 00:10:24.559 --> 00:10:27.220 must have been around then because it coincided 00:10:27.220 --> 00:10:30.299 with something that happened at the church. So, 00:10:30.299 --> 00:10:34.440 you know, in elementary school, we were in Redlands. 00:10:34.500 --> 00:10:36.620 There was a church there. It was already established. 00:10:36.860 --> 00:10:40.340 There was a decent number of membership. It dwindled. 00:10:40.559 --> 00:10:42.960 Then we moved to Colton. Then it built up a little 00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:44.700 bit and there was a decent number of church, 00:10:44.779 --> 00:10:48.559 regular church members there. But I think it 00:10:48.559 --> 00:10:51.179 was fairly early on in high school when that 00:10:51.179 --> 00:10:53.460 church membership started to dwindle to the point 00:10:53.460 --> 00:10:59.899 of, well, zero. You know, I experienced, this 00:10:59.899 --> 00:11:02.000 is what's crazy, I experienced the times when 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:04.720 the church was flourishing and then I also experienced 00:11:04.720 --> 00:11:07.620 the downturn. And the downturn was a really bad 00:11:07.620 --> 00:11:10.840 downturn. Like I'm talking like there were Sundays 00:11:10.840 --> 00:11:14.299 when it would just be our family in the sanctuary. 00:11:15.080 --> 00:11:18.659 there would be nobody that would step into the 00:11:18.659 --> 00:11:21.480 church. And it was like we're having a family 00:11:21.480 --> 00:11:27.379 service. It was in all weeks. There were some 00:11:27.379 --> 00:11:30.500 weeks. There were some weeks where there's a 00:11:30.500 --> 00:11:32.120 couple people in the neighborhood that would, 00:11:32.179 --> 00:11:36.440 you know, regularly show up. We're talking like 00:11:36.440 --> 00:11:40.240 two people at most, right? Like two, three people 00:11:40.240 --> 00:11:46.330 at most. The church basically died. The church 00:11:46.330 --> 00:11:52.409 basically died. And because my dad's, I mean, 00:11:52.429 --> 00:11:56.289 I think at the time I didn't fully grasp the 00:11:56.289 --> 00:12:00.690 gravity of what that meant for my dad. But thinking 00:12:00.690 --> 00:12:05.149 back on it now, right, I imagine that would be 00:12:05.149 --> 00:12:08.570 like not only losing your job, but having the 00:12:08.570 --> 00:12:10.470 loss of your job kind of rubbed in your face 00:12:10.470 --> 00:12:19.809 every Sunday. I don't know exactly how big of 00:12:19.809 --> 00:12:23.529 an impact it really had as a kid. I think all 00:12:23.529 --> 00:12:28.389 I saw was the result. I don't know if it was 00:12:28.389 --> 00:12:30.549 just the dwindling church membership either. 00:12:30.610 --> 00:12:33.889 It could have been the toll of poverty and the 00:12:33.889 --> 00:12:36.169 fact that my mom had to be the breadwinner for 00:12:36.169 --> 00:12:40.309 so many years. But I saw something shift in my 00:12:40.309 --> 00:12:44.919 dad. Because he was a guy that I remember growing 00:12:44.919 --> 00:12:48.340 up as a kid was so enthusiastic about his work. 00:12:48.500 --> 00:12:52.720 He was so passionate about serving his community, 00:12:52.899 --> 00:12:56.639 about the church and serving the people, the 00:12:56.639 --> 00:13:00.159 congregation members, meeting with people, breaking 00:13:00.159 --> 00:13:04.559 bread with them, just talking life with people. 00:13:05.200 --> 00:13:09.440 That man that I used to know completely disappeared. 00:13:11.159 --> 00:13:13.639 And he turned into not only a shell of himself, 00:13:13.840 --> 00:13:17.259 but a shell of a person. He spent much of his 00:13:17.259 --> 00:13:20.139 days, like we lived in the, like the church owned 00:13:20.139 --> 00:13:23.600 or bought out the property and probably still 00:13:23.600 --> 00:13:26.259 pay him a decent amount of mortgage on it, right? 00:13:26.299 --> 00:13:29.120 But they had the sanctuary and then they also 00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:32.600 bought the home next to it for, you know, the 00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:36.139 pastor. This is, I guess, pretty common in these 00:13:36.139 --> 00:13:39.080 religious institutions, right? But that was for 00:13:39.080 --> 00:13:42.350 us to live in. You know, there was a little area 00:13:42.350 --> 00:13:45.070 for growing like plants and so on. And it was 00:13:45.070 --> 00:13:47.409 like he reverted back to his childhood days or 00:13:47.409 --> 00:13:49.370 something in the farm where he would just tend 00:13:49.370 --> 00:13:53.409 to his garden. He would read the newspaper. I 00:13:53.409 --> 00:13:56.330 rarely saw him working on anything. He would 00:13:56.330 --> 00:13:58.669 get ready and go out when there were some sort 00:13:58.669 --> 00:14:04.049 of meeting with other pastors for some, you know, 00:14:04.090 --> 00:14:08.840 denomination gathering of some sort, right? He 00:14:08.840 --> 00:14:11.340 would present okay in these hour settings, but 00:14:11.340 --> 00:14:13.159 when I would come home on a day -to -day basis 00:14:13.159 --> 00:14:17.139 on most days, I just never saw him doing anything. 00:14:19.799 --> 00:14:23.899 If I had to make sense of what happened back 00:14:23.899 --> 00:14:26.700 then, given what I know now, I'd probably say 00:14:26.700 --> 00:14:30.539 that maybe he didn't know it, but it seemed like 00:14:30.539 --> 00:14:34.500 he fell into severe depression and probably lacked 00:14:34.500 --> 00:14:38.139 any sense of self -worth. At that point, I mean, 00:14:38.139 --> 00:14:41.159 we're talking his livelihood, his passion. It's 00:14:41.159 --> 00:14:45.000 just like all of it was a strip from him. But 00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:48.620 as a high school kid, I didn't I didn't see that. 00:14:48.679 --> 00:14:51.440 I didn't see it as like a sad situation where 00:14:51.440 --> 00:14:54.500 he was depressed and he was, you know, feeling 00:14:54.500 --> 00:14:57.019 whatever that he was going through. I'm a high 00:14:57.019 --> 00:14:59.539 school kid and I'm his son. Right. So, you know, 00:14:59.539 --> 00:15:03.919 as a kid, I saw him and I just saw this lazy 00:15:03.919 --> 00:15:07.269 piece of shit. That didn't do shit for the family 00:15:07.269 --> 00:15:09.629 while my mom worked hard to put food on the table. 00:15:11.330 --> 00:15:16.450 And that view of him turned into a deep, deep 00:15:16.450 --> 00:15:20.389 sense of resentment and anger. And it just grew 00:15:20.389 --> 00:15:23.769 day by day every time I would come home and see 00:15:23.769 --> 00:15:30.149 him. I was enraged with him on the daily. Like, 00:15:30.169 --> 00:15:33.690 I don't know if he knew back then or not, but 00:15:33.690 --> 00:15:37.789 he had lost At least before I had some modicum 00:15:37.789 --> 00:15:40.110 of respect for him, I had zero respect for him 00:15:40.110 --> 00:15:45.549 as a person. I saw a man that was emotionally, 00:15:45.789 --> 00:15:49.509 physically, cognitively just completely checked 00:15:49.509 --> 00:15:56.570 out. He was physically around in some ways, but 00:15:56.570 --> 00:15:58.570 it's almost like his soul left his body and there 00:15:58.570 --> 00:16:03.990 was not a real man there. And it enraged me. 00:16:04.669 --> 00:16:08.629 It enraged me because a couple of things. One, 00:16:08.889 --> 00:16:11.129 I thought he wasn't handling his responsibilities 00:16:11.129 --> 00:16:16.129 as a father, as a husband, as just a person in 00:16:16.129 --> 00:16:18.990 society. I thought he should have been finding 00:16:18.990 --> 00:16:22.169 something to do. I think a lot of the gripe I 00:16:22.169 --> 00:16:25.409 had with him at the time was I saw it as a form 00:16:25.409 --> 00:16:28.389 of him holding on to a foolish sense of pride 00:16:28.389 --> 00:16:33.690 and that he needed to get a job or give up. Do 00:16:33.690 --> 00:16:36.730 what it needed to be done to handle his responsibilities, 00:16:37.129 --> 00:16:41.409 right? However I understood what his responsibilities 00:16:41.409 --> 00:16:45.009 were to be. But in the base, in the most basic 00:16:45.009 --> 00:16:47.149 level, it was put food on the table for the family, 00:16:47.269 --> 00:16:50.870 right? Don't expect me to be, as a kid, to be 00:16:50.870 --> 00:16:53.149 the one to work and then make ends meet, right? 00:16:53.350 --> 00:16:55.990 Do something with your life. Like, just do something, 00:16:56.029 --> 00:17:06.240 anything with your life. And I hated him because 00:17:06.240 --> 00:17:08.220 not only was he not handling responsibility because 00:17:08.220 --> 00:17:12.119 he wasn't handling his responsibilities. I thought 00:17:12.119 --> 00:17:15.059 that it was putting a burden on everyone else. 00:17:15.839 --> 00:17:19.220 And the toll I saw it take the most on was my 00:17:19.220 --> 00:17:22.519 mom who was just hustling. Like she was not, 00:17:22.599 --> 00:17:27.339 my mom is the kind of person who works hard, 00:17:27.539 --> 00:17:30.539 but is not very mindful or thoughtful in what 00:17:30.539 --> 00:17:33.619 she's doing. So I never expected my mom to like, 00:17:33.789 --> 00:17:36.869 develop skills. It was hard for her mind to slow 00:17:36.869 --> 00:17:39.210 down long enough to really do something well. 00:17:40.130 --> 00:17:42.670 But she would work hard, right? So she would 00:17:42.670 --> 00:17:44.710 find ways to make ends meet. She would pick up 00:17:44.710 --> 00:17:47.769 odd jobs here and there. And it was at least 00:17:47.769 --> 00:17:49.529 something, right? But the fact that she had to 00:17:49.529 --> 00:17:52.150 go to the lengths that she did in order to make 00:17:52.150 --> 00:17:59.230 ends meet absolutely enraged me. My goal at some 00:17:59.230 --> 00:18:02.670 point became... To be just not my dad, like that 00:18:02.670 --> 00:18:05.509 was my goal. It wasn't to be anything in particular. 00:18:05.529 --> 00:18:08.950 It was just don't be like my dad. I wanted to 00:18:08.950 --> 00:18:12.710 distance myself from him. To never to be the 00:18:12.710 --> 00:18:17.470 man that I saw just that deteriorated right in 00:18:17.470 --> 00:18:22.049 front of my eyes. You know, I still fulfill certain 00:18:22.049 --> 00:18:24.609 obligations, like whatever that meant, right? 00:18:24.690 --> 00:18:27.710 Like these are kind of like more habits, I guess, 00:18:27.769 --> 00:18:30.789 right? Things that... uh were ingrained into 00:18:30.789 --> 00:18:32.789 me as these are kind of like your obligations 00:18:32.789 --> 00:18:35.890 as a person a lot of this comes from uh you know 00:18:35.890 --> 00:18:39.930 my parents own korean uh you know influence right 00:18:39.930 --> 00:18:43.549 and i just things i'd never really thought too 00:18:43.549 --> 00:18:46.289 hard about but i think in part i think because 00:18:46.289 --> 00:18:48.349 i in seeing my dad check out i think one thing 00:18:48.349 --> 00:18:50.970 i wanted to do was look if it took me to do the 00:18:50.970 --> 00:18:55.009 bare minimum to distance myself to not have to 00:18:55.009 --> 00:18:57.190 think about it to not stress over it and just 00:18:57.190 --> 00:19:01.430 get it off my back I'll do it. So I fulfilled 00:19:01.430 --> 00:19:03.890 certain quote unquote obligations. You know, 00:19:03.910 --> 00:19:06.730 when I was in college, I remember I would send 00:19:06.730 --> 00:19:09.609 home money regularly. I'm talking to a college 00:19:09.609 --> 00:19:12.569 student who was taking out loans, you know, working 00:19:12.569 --> 00:19:15.990 part time to try to minimize those loans. And 00:19:15.990 --> 00:19:19.089 I would still find ways to save up at least a 00:19:19.089 --> 00:19:20.809 little bit of money. Well, not really saving. 00:19:20.930 --> 00:19:22.930 I mean, it was money I was going to owe later 00:19:22.930 --> 00:19:25.450 down the line. But I would send home a few hundred 00:19:25.450 --> 00:19:30.779 dollars here and there. in order for my parents 00:19:30.779 --> 00:19:33.619 to, I don't know, make the food on the table, 00:19:33.720 --> 00:19:35.519 for my brother to not have to worry about getting 00:19:35.519 --> 00:19:42.839 a job. And I did this with another thing in mind, 00:19:42.920 --> 00:19:45.900 which is at least if I'm doing this, I just didn't 00:19:45.900 --> 00:19:49.359 have to actually fulfill any other expectations 00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:51.660 they might have had of me, like coming home. 00:19:52.380 --> 00:19:56.519 I tried so hard to avoid being around him. I 00:19:56.519 --> 00:19:59.240 mean, I tried to avoid being around home altogether, 00:19:59.339 --> 00:20:02.440 but I tried to avoid being around him just because 00:20:02.440 --> 00:20:05.119 it would get my blood pressure high. Like just 00:20:05.119 --> 00:20:08.380 seeing him made my blood pressure elevate, right? 00:20:09.660 --> 00:20:11.799 So I'd make excuses for why I couldn't make it 00:20:11.799 --> 00:20:13.839 to certain events, right? I would try to avoid 00:20:13.839 --> 00:20:17.119 coming home. Sometimes I just did it out of feeling 00:20:17.119 --> 00:20:19.519 it's an obligation. But, you know, in the summers, 00:20:19.519 --> 00:20:21.859 I purposely tried to stay away from home, find 00:20:21.859 --> 00:20:25.880 a job in L .A., away from my parents. I tried 00:20:25.880 --> 00:20:30.960 to, you know, in whatever holidays, like three 00:20:30.960 --> 00:20:32.700 -day weekends there were, like I would just make 00:20:32.700 --> 00:20:35.039 excuses like school stuff or whatever. I think 00:20:35.039 --> 00:20:37.440 they always thought I was busy because I constantly 00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:39.160 got into the habit of making so many excuses 00:20:39.160 --> 00:20:41.480 for why I was too busy and I couldn't come back 00:20:41.480 --> 00:20:44.119 home. But the reality was I didn't want to come 00:20:44.119 --> 00:20:46.980 back home. I didn't want to see my family. It 00:20:46.980 --> 00:20:48.619 was depressing to see my family. My brother was 00:20:48.619 --> 00:20:51.880 fine, but, you know, my mom and dad, seeing them 00:20:51.880 --> 00:20:55.609 in the state that they were in, I just... I couldn't. 00:20:57.390 --> 00:21:02.349 I never gave enough weight to just how much that 00:21:02.349 --> 00:21:05.650 image of my dad shaped my relationship with him 00:21:05.650 --> 00:21:10.049 for the two decades that follow. Two plus decades, 00:21:10.210 --> 00:21:13.690 maybe. You know, before he was just wrong about 00:21:13.690 --> 00:21:15.789 stuff, right? As a kid, that's what it was. But 00:21:15.789 --> 00:21:18.069 now the narrative was something much harsher, 00:21:18.109 --> 00:21:21.589 right? He's a pathetic, lazy, useless, self -absorbed, 00:21:21.589 --> 00:21:24.089 arrogant piece of shit who just couldn't give 00:21:24.089 --> 00:21:27.849 up on his wild dreams that he seemed to suck 00:21:27.849 --> 00:21:32.750 at. And then as a result, just drained family 00:21:32.750 --> 00:21:36.069 resources and didn't take care of his own family. 00:21:36.150 --> 00:21:40.390 That's a huge difference in my attitude towards 00:21:40.390 --> 00:21:44.890 him. One meant that... One that meant that any 00:21:44.890 --> 00:21:47.029 mistake he made became just another piece of 00:21:47.029 --> 00:21:50.670 evidence. It's almost like once that narrative 00:21:50.670 --> 00:21:55.369 was in my head, everything he did just reminded 00:21:55.369 --> 00:21:58.990 me of all the other things that I remembered 00:21:58.990 --> 00:22:01.849 and cherry -picked in my mind to support this 00:22:01.849 --> 00:22:06.910 idea that I had already of him. And there's no 00:22:06.910 --> 00:22:08.789 better evidence of this when the housing bubble 00:22:08.789 --> 00:22:13.490 burst in 2008, right? I was already concerned 00:22:13.490 --> 00:22:16.750 with my parents deciding to buy a home. So just 00:22:16.750 --> 00:22:19.250 to kind of give you the context, right? So my 00:22:19.250 --> 00:22:21.930 parents, after living in Colton for so long, 00:22:22.029 --> 00:22:25.970 housing, they were finally, because of the subprime 00:22:25.970 --> 00:22:28.009 mortgages, they thought they were able to afford 00:22:28.009 --> 00:22:31.109 a house somewhere in Orange County. They decided 00:22:31.109 --> 00:22:33.490 to kind of start over because the church was 00:22:33.490 --> 00:22:37.240 essentially dead. You know, they had friends 00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:39.700 in Orange County area, not so many that lived 00:22:39.700 --> 00:22:42.220 out in an empire. Right. So it was something 00:22:42.220 --> 00:22:44.940 that gave them some life. Right. But for whatever 00:22:44.940 --> 00:22:46.420 reason, they decided, OK, we're going to buy 00:22:46.420 --> 00:22:48.640 a home. It's going to be big enough that maybe 00:22:48.640 --> 00:22:51.720 we could house some nearby, you know, international 00:22:51.720 --> 00:22:54.920 students and help them place them into a home 00:22:54.920 --> 00:22:57.779 and get them acclimated. They had all these ideas 00:22:57.779 --> 00:23:00.920 of things they wanted to do to try to, you know, 00:23:00.920 --> 00:23:04.859 jumpstart and change their life midway through. 00:23:06.319 --> 00:23:10.859 midway through. Right. So, uh, even though, you 00:23:10.859 --> 00:23:14.279 know, I had some concerns, I was like, I'm going 00:23:14.279 --> 00:23:16.900 to stay out of it. They can make their own decisions. 00:23:16.960 --> 00:23:19.539 Now I had some serious concerns. One was that 00:23:19.539 --> 00:23:21.559 it wasn't a fixed 30 year mortgage. So I was 00:23:21.559 --> 00:23:25.259 like already, this is a little odd. Um, and also 00:23:25.259 --> 00:23:27.160 the bigger concern was they didn't really have 00:23:27.160 --> 00:23:30.369 a set income coming in. So I was like, A, I don't 00:23:30.369 --> 00:23:31.990 know how you got approved for the loan, but B, 00:23:32.269 --> 00:23:34.509 like, how are you going to actually pay for this? 00:23:34.549 --> 00:23:36.329 It seems like you have plans for how to make 00:23:36.329 --> 00:23:38.329 money, but that seems after the fact. That doesn't 00:23:38.329 --> 00:23:40.390 seem like something that's already set in stone. 00:23:41.170 --> 00:23:43.250 But by then I had already checked out. So I was 00:23:43.250 --> 00:23:45.450 like, you know what? I'm going to let them make 00:23:45.450 --> 00:23:47.190 their own mistakes, have them live with their 00:23:47.190 --> 00:23:50.509 consequences, and I'm not going to exhaust myself 00:23:50.509 --> 00:23:52.289 trying to take care of them. That's going to 00:23:52.289 --> 00:23:55.049 kill me. It's going to send me into a spiral 00:23:55.049 --> 00:23:58.920 depression. I had essentially... given up on 00:23:58.920 --> 00:24:01.900 them already by that point. Given up on trying 00:24:01.900 --> 00:24:05.140 to get them to make better decisions, given up 00:24:05.140 --> 00:24:07.740 on trying to encourage them, given up on caring 00:24:07.740 --> 00:24:14.240 in any way. But then, of course, like, shit hit 00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:17.960 the fan. Things got worse, right? Before the 00:24:17.960 --> 00:24:20.160 full -blown recession, they were already struggling 00:24:20.160 --> 00:24:22.420 with the house payment, so they doubled down 00:24:22.420 --> 00:24:25.019 on bad decisions and decided to buy up a coffee 00:24:25.019 --> 00:24:28.589 shop to at least have some revenue. Now, they 00:24:28.589 --> 00:24:29.970 couldn't afford the coffee shop, so they took 00:24:29.970 --> 00:24:32.829 out a loan in order to get that coffee shop, 00:24:32.950 --> 00:24:34.750 I believe. I mean, they might have paid for it, 00:24:34.769 --> 00:24:36.589 but if they just paid for it outright, then that 00:24:36.589 --> 00:24:40.430 was dumb themselves, right? Now, this might not 00:24:40.430 --> 00:24:41.930 have been the worst decision if they knew how 00:24:41.930 --> 00:24:44.049 to run a business, if they knew anything about 00:24:44.049 --> 00:24:46.430 how to attract customers or anything like that, 00:24:46.450 --> 00:24:48.289 but they were learning from scratch. They didn't 00:24:48.289 --> 00:24:50.369 know anything about coffee. They weren't even 00:24:50.369 --> 00:24:54.880 like big coffee drinkers, right? And they just 00:24:54.880 --> 00:24:57.220 were taught by the previous owner, like how to 00:24:57.220 --> 00:24:59.559 do X, Y, and Z, like follow these steps. And 00:24:59.559 --> 00:25:01.920 then, you know, this is how you make the stuff 00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:04.259 that they made, right? The sandwiches and the 00:25:04.259 --> 00:25:06.920 coffees that were available. And they thought, 00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:09.099 oh, okay, this is something we can do. But they 00:25:09.099 --> 00:25:10.880 never thought like, oh, maybe we need to invest 00:25:10.880 --> 00:25:12.799 back in the business. They never learned anything 00:25:12.799 --> 00:25:15.660 about how to price things in a way that would 00:25:15.660 --> 00:25:18.599 be profitable. They never learned about properly 00:25:18.599 --> 00:25:21.420 advertising or getting the word out or anything 00:25:21.420 --> 00:25:23.910 like that, right? I mean, their shop was outdated, 00:25:24.230 --> 00:25:26.670 overpriced, just overall a bad investment, right? 00:25:26.769 --> 00:25:28.349 If I had known that this is what they were going 00:25:28.349 --> 00:25:31.490 to do, I would have done my best to just like, 00:25:31.569 --> 00:25:33.230 if I cared enough, I would have stopped them, 00:25:33.269 --> 00:25:35.069 right? If a friend was making this kind of investment, 00:25:35.309 --> 00:25:36.569 I would have told them they were a complete idiot 00:25:36.569 --> 00:25:40.009 and I will actually do everything I can, like 00:25:40.009 --> 00:25:42.569 put my body in front of them to prevent them 00:25:42.569 --> 00:25:45.150 from making this terrible decision, right? I 00:25:45.150 --> 00:25:47.750 tried to help when I had some time and energy 00:25:47.750 --> 00:25:51.970 in the summer. I think part of it was, you know, 00:25:52.430 --> 00:25:54.650 I got free coffee out of it. I was a big coffee 00:25:54.650 --> 00:25:56.369 drinker. I actually was addicted to caffeine 00:25:56.369 --> 00:25:58.750 at that point. But it was also kind of like a 00:25:58.750 --> 00:26:01.470 nice quiet place when it wasn't too busy for 00:26:01.470 --> 00:26:04.950 me to get work done for grad school during the 00:26:04.950 --> 00:26:07.890 summer. So I thought, oh, maybe I'll go ahead 00:26:07.890 --> 00:26:09.970 and at least do it, try it out, learn a few things. 00:26:10.109 --> 00:26:15.089 And I did. But of course, you know, I couldn't 00:26:15.089 --> 00:26:18.069 help but see what a shitty establishment it was. 00:26:18.170 --> 00:26:19.589 And I was like, oh my goodness, I wish I could 00:26:19.589 --> 00:26:20.789 change some of the things that are done here. 00:26:21.470 --> 00:26:24.230 at least make it more efficient, you know, at 00:26:24.230 --> 00:26:25.869 least have products that people would actually 00:26:25.869 --> 00:26:29.509 want, try to be a little bit innovative to attract 00:26:29.509 --> 00:26:33.289 new customers. I put a little bit of energy into 00:26:33.289 --> 00:26:35.309 it, but it was always a struggle because, you 00:26:35.309 --> 00:26:37.029 know, my parents would always kind of put things 00:26:37.029 --> 00:26:39.650 back to the way things were, what they were comfortable 00:26:39.650 --> 00:26:41.710 with. Change was really hard for them. Change 00:26:41.710 --> 00:26:46.730 was, I think, I think I see it better now that 00:26:46.730 --> 00:26:51.619 it wasn't, the change wasn't just. I have a rational 00:26:51.619 --> 00:26:53.700 disagreement about this as a business choice. 00:26:54.160 --> 00:26:56.599 It was just change was overwhelming for them, 00:26:56.619 --> 00:27:00.640 just emotionally or cognitively. It was just 00:27:00.640 --> 00:27:04.000 an overload. And as you would expect with any 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:07.819 business that just, you know, doesn't grow with 00:27:07.819 --> 00:27:10.200 the times is that the business was a bust. The 00:27:10.200 --> 00:27:13.440 house was lost, you know, subprime mortgage. 00:27:13.519 --> 00:27:15.759 They were lucky enough that they were able to 00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:18.160 short sell the house before. The full -on, full 00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:20.940 -on crash happened, but they were left pretty 00:27:20.940 --> 00:27:25.660 broke. They lived with my brother for a period. 00:27:29.079 --> 00:27:32.160 I know that, God, I'm so grateful for him because 00:27:32.160 --> 00:27:35.079 I know that he was, he might not have admitted 00:27:35.079 --> 00:27:39.400 it, but he wasn't, he did his duty. Let's just 00:27:39.400 --> 00:27:42.220 leave it that way. He did his duty. It wasn't 00:27:42.220 --> 00:27:45.500 from joy that he was doing it. I can tell because 00:27:45.500 --> 00:27:47.900 he didn't want to come home. He didn't want to 00:27:47.900 --> 00:27:50.000 come home because my parents are living there 00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:52.339 with him. I mean, he was a grown man at that 00:27:52.339 --> 00:27:54.839 point, right? He had a job, a full -time job, 00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:58.779 and he's there living at home with his parents. 00:27:59.240 --> 00:28:02.660 Not because he was the one who wasn't able to 00:28:02.660 --> 00:28:04.059 take care of himself, but because my parents 00:28:04.059 --> 00:28:11.519 made so many bad decisions. You know, I guess 00:28:11.519 --> 00:28:13.339 I could have put the responsibility on both my 00:28:13.339 --> 00:28:15.710 parents. even in these situations. I mean, I 00:28:15.710 --> 00:28:18.069 learned after the fact that a lot of the decisions, 00:28:18.190 --> 00:28:20.990 these were, like, egged on by my mom, too. So, 00:28:20.990 --> 00:28:22.609 I mean, they were both terrible with finances. 00:28:23.170 --> 00:28:26.490 So I imagined, like, it would have been probably 00:28:26.490 --> 00:28:29.289 much more fair to probably play responsibility 00:28:29.289 --> 00:28:32.349 on both. But when you have the image of your 00:28:32.349 --> 00:28:35.490 dad the way that I did, I just stuck to it. I 00:28:35.490 --> 00:28:37.190 was like, you're the man of the house. You should 00:28:37.190 --> 00:28:40.849 have found a way to say yes or no to bad decisions, 00:28:41.150 --> 00:28:45.519 right? I probably put more of the blame on him. 00:28:45.980 --> 00:28:48.059 Even though, to be honest, by that point, I think 00:28:48.059 --> 00:28:52.819 I was equally frustrated with my mom. All this 00:28:52.819 --> 00:28:56.039 to say, every step of the way in my own education 00:28:56.039 --> 00:29:01.099 and career, I was in part running towards something 00:29:01.099 --> 00:29:04.680 that I loved. But there was another, probably 00:29:04.680 --> 00:29:07.160 a bigger part of me where I was running away 00:29:07.160 --> 00:29:11.400 from something. I've mentioned before that I 00:29:11.400 --> 00:29:13.519 was running away from poverty, but I was also 00:29:13.519 --> 00:29:15.960 running away from this image that I had of my 00:29:15.960 --> 00:29:21.920 dad. I feared in the depths of my soul, like 00:29:21.920 --> 00:29:27.200 a dreadful fear of being like my dad. I didn't 00:29:27.200 --> 00:29:29.519 want to be like him in any way. I loathed him. 00:29:31.400 --> 00:29:35.789 And when I would see an image of him in me, When 00:29:35.789 --> 00:29:37.789 somebody would point out, like, oh, I'm just 00:29:37.789 --> 00:29:40.089 like my dad in such and such a way, like, it 00:29:40.089 --> 00:29:42.430 rarely happened, but the few times it did happen, 00:29:42.609 --> 00:29:45.029 God, it would put me on a tailspin. Like, that 00:29:45.029 --> 00:29:47.930 would be my Achilles heel, right? Like, I just, 00:29:48.170 --> 00:29:52.650 if I saw it in myself, I hated myself. I would 00:29:52.650 --> 00:29:54.930 yell at myself. I would be enraged with myself. 00:29:55.769 --> 00:29:59.170 And I would, like, do everything I could to try 00:29:59.170 --> 00:30:02.789 to run away from being that thing. And that's 00:30:02.789 --> 00:30:07.029 exactly what happened. You know, when my marriage 00:30:07.029 --> 00:30:09.130 was on the rocks while I was in Pennsylvania, 00:30:09.470 --> 00:30:13.609 I did exactly what my dad did. I mean, I didn't 00:30:13.609 --> 00:30:15.730 notice it at the time, at least not immediately, 00:30:15.769 --> 00:30:19.650 but I would do the thing that he did that I hated 00:30:19.650 --> 00:30:22.609 him for, where he just checked out. Emotionally, 00:30:22.609 --> 00:30:24.650 cognitively, just completely checked out. Physically, 00:30:24.670 --> 00:30:27.210 he was around. He would physically do stuff. 00:30:27.569 --> 00:30:30.450 You know, when I was in Pennsylvania and I was 00:30:30.450 --> 00:30:32.890 struggling, I would do stuff. I would still go 00:30:32.890 --> 00:30:36.410 to work. get the job done, I would, you know, 00:30:36.410 --> 00:30:39.130 make sure to pay the bills. I mean, it became 00:30:39.130 --> 00:30:42.630 easier with auto pay. But, you know, I did what 00:30:42.630 --> 00:30:45.190 I had to do. But emotionally and mentally, I 00:30:45.190 --> 00:30:48.529 was checked out. That was my solution to the 00:30:48.529 --> 00:30:52.029 problems in my life. Not just in my marriage, 00:30:52.089 --> 00:30:55.150 but finances, adulting, like whatever it was 00:30:55.150 --> 00:30:59.960 like. Everything, any responsibility that I just 00:30:59.960 --> 00:31:02.740 felt overwhelmed by, like my go -to response 00:31:02.740 --> 00:31:05.720 was, I just checked out. It was the same thing 00:31:05.720 --> 00:31:08.500 that my dad did years ago, and I didn't want 00:31:08.500 --> 00:31:10.960 to acknowledge it, that that's what I was doing. 00:31:11.779 --> 00:31:14.059 I would tell myself that I was at least better 00:31:14.059 --> 00:31:17.420 than him because I at least still had a job and 00:31:17.420 --> 00:31:21.339 I still was working and putting, you know, money 00:31:21.339 --> 00:31:23.900 was going into the bank, food on the table, right? 00:31:23.940 --> 00:31:28.240 Like, even as I started, I really never wanted 00:31:28.240 --> 00:31:32.059 to acknowledge that reality that I was in any 00:31:32.059 --> 00:31:35.140 way like my dad. Like I talked about him as if 00:31:35.140 --> 00:31:40.359 he was this thing that I was wholly different 00:31:40.359 --> 00:31:44.019 from, that I was better than. I mean, I wouldn't 00:31:44.019 --> 00:31:46.440 use those words, but essentially, yeah, that's 00:31:46.440 --> 00:31:48.859 what I wanted to believe, that I was just better 00:31:48.859 --> 00:31:51.200 than him, that I would never do the things that 00:31:51.200 --> 00:31:55.279 he would do. Because acknowledging that I was 00:31:55.279 --> 00:31:59.779 like him would, it would be worse than death. 00:31:59.900 --> 00:32:03.519 Like, it really would. The shame and the hate 00:32:03.519 --> 00:32:05.339 I would feel towards myself, like, I honestly 00:32:05.339 --> 00:32:13.420 wouldn't know how to go on living. But, you know, 00:32:13.460 --> 00:32:15.920 this is just, I think this is what I learned 00:32:15.920 --> 00:32:19.190 about the way life is, right? You could try to 00:32:19.190 --> 00:32:21.650 avoid things as much as you want to, but at some 00:32:21.650 --> 00:32:26.950 point reality will hit. It all comes home to 00:32:26.950 --> 00:32:28.890 roost. Is that what they say? I don't know what 00:32:28.890 --> 00:32:32.049 the saying is, but eventually my relationship 00:32:32.049 --> 00:32:34.950 got bad enough. Eventually the way that I handle 00:32:34.950 --> 00:32:38.269 finances got bad enough. Eventually everything 00:32:38.269 --> 00:32:40.309 that I was doing got bad enough that there was 00:32:40.309 --> 00:32:44.329 no denying the reality. I was falling into the 00:32:44.329 --> 00:32:48.990 same spiral that my dad was. That my dad did. 00:32:51.529 --> 00:32:53.589 I did all the same things when things got too 00:32:53.589 --> 00:32:58.410 difficult. I checked out. And it might have looked 00:32:58.410 --> 00:33:02.210 a little bit different. I wasn't gardening. But 00:33:02.210 --> 00:33:06.829 I'm sure that if I were to see myself now from 00:33:06.829 --> 00:33:10.289 the outside, I would have the exact same impression 00:33:10.289 --> 00:33:14.289 that I had of my dad as a kid, which was a man 00:33:14.289 --> 00:33:17.609 that was a shell of himself. That was a shell 00:33:17.609 --> 00:33:22.109 of a person. I can do day -to -day tasks, but 00:33:22.109 --> 00:33:26.309 it felt robotic. It felt like I was just doing 00:33:26.309 --> 00:33:30.109 stuff. Making it through another day, ignoring 00:33:30.109 --> 00:33:33.029 the bad, trying to be positive. Yeah, positive 00:33:33.029 --> 00:33:36.210 thinking. That'll get me through. It'll all be 00:33:36.210 --> 00:33:38.289 better tomorrow. This is all the same shit that 00:33:38.289 --> 00:33:43.390 my dad would often tell me. Things that he probably 00:33:43.390 --> 00:33:46.750 told himself. And I did the exact same thing. 00:33:47.950 --> 00:33:52.269 In essence, what he and I both did was we avoided 00:33:52.269 --> 00:33:55.029 addressing the real issues in our lives head 00:33:55.029 --> 00:33:58.670 on. For my dad, I'm sure that was acknowledging 00:33:58.670 --> 00:34:02.829 his own insecurities and failings with regards 00:34:02.829 --> 00:34:11.389 to his mission, his pastoral career. For me, 00:34:14.320 --> 00:34:16.539 In many ways, it was probably worse than my dad 00:34:16.539 --> 00:34:23.659 because I needed to not only face those insecurities, 00:34:23.739 --> 00:34:27.860 but that also meant that it had to do with shit 00:34:27.860 --> 00:34:30.480 about my feelings towards my dad that I never 00:34:30.480 --> 00:34:38.920 really addressed. And I just didn't want to face 00:34:38.920 --> 00:34:41.340 them directly, so I would always make excuses 00:34:41.340 --> 00:34:46.610 for them. for not facing them or deflecting and 00:34:46.610 --> 00:34:49.929 saying that that's not really the issue. Or sometimes 00:34:49.929 --> 00:34:53.309 it hurt others because I would blame others for 00:34:53.309 --> 00:35:00.829 the mistakes that I made. And when I had to start 00:35:00.829 --> 00:35:05.230 seeing the parallel in what I was doing and what 00:35:05.230 --> 00:35:09.070 I hated my dad so much for, like I fell into 00:35:09.070 --> 00:35:12.389 depression all over again. I hated myself. I 00:35:12.389 --> 00:35:18.639 felt... undeserving of anything at all. I just 00:35:18.639 --> 00:35:25.239 wanted to crawl into a hole and just die. If 00:35:25.239 --> 00:35:28.179 anything, I felt like it was justified if the 00:35:28.179 --> 00:35:31.739 people that I had hurt along the way, that they 00:35:31.739 --> 00:35:36.840 deserved to put me in that hole and to bring 00:35:36.840 --> 00:35:41.639 about my death. Everything I had worked on just 00:35:41.639 --> 00:35:44.440 felt meaningless in an instant because as much 00:35:44.440 --> 00:35:47.099 as I tried to run away from being the man that 00:35:47.099 --> 00:35:49.260 I hated so much, I ended up becoming just like 00:35:49.260 --> 00:35:57.940 him. I cannot describe fully what those therapy 00:35:57.940 --> 00:36:02.280 sessions were when I would have to go back to 00:36:02.280 --> 00:36:06.000 these spaces and acknowledge how I actually felt 00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:10.630 about my dad. I can only describe to you what 00:36:10.630 --> 00:36:15.789 I did afterwards, which was I would just crawl 00:36:15.789 --> 00:36:23.309 into bed and I would just cry for hours. I would 00:36:23.309 --> 00:36:30.489 just cry for hours. And then I would sleep. And 00:36:30.489 --> 00:36:32.710 when I woke up, I didn't necessarily feel better. 00:36:33.570 --> 00:36:38.219 I stopped crying. It was cathartic, I guess, 00:36:38.239 --> 00:36:45.099 in that way. But I also felt a little bit numb. 00:36:47.679 --> 00:36:51.119 Because it's almost like so much just got sucked 00:36:51.119 --> 00:36:59.519 out of me. At this point, there honestly was 00:36:59.519 --> 00:37:02.440 nothing left to do but to sit with this truth. 00:37:05.039 --> 00:37:07.619 And that's all that the therapy sessions provided. 00:37:07.800 --> 00:37:13.400 It just provided a space for me to sit with the 00:37:13.400 --> 00:37:23.820 truth. You know what's crazy? I think there are 00:37:23.820 --> 00:37:27.840 times when I would just tell my dad, like, you 00:37:27.840 --> 00:37:34.280 know, years after all this has happened. I forgave 00:37:34.280 --> 00:37:38.059 him, but it was like a cognitive, I forgive him. 00:37:38.119 --> 00:37:42.920 I don't think I really actually forgave him in 00:37:42.920 --> 00:37:48.420 terms of from the heart until I was able to forgive 00:37:48.420 --> 00:37:58.800 myself. It's weird, but learning to accept my 00:37:58.800 --> 00:38:02.769 own weaknesses and my own failings and... my 00:38:02.769 --> 00:38:10.570 own mistakes. And it took years of work to really 00:38:10.570 --> 00:38:13.469 get to that space. But to be able to forgive 00:38:13.469 --> 00:38:17.110 myself, to stop screaming and yelling and hating 00:38:17.110 --> 00:38:21.469 myself for all the things that I saw in myself 00:38:21.469 --> 00:38:24.610 that I just thought was like my dad, right? In 00:38:24.610 --> 00:38:30.289 learning to forgive myself, And eventually coming 00:38:30.289 --> 00:38:33.750 to embrace myself, it's only then that I was 00:38:33.750 --> 00:38:38.030 able to really forgive my dad. And that should 00:38:38.030 --> 00:38:41.670 make a lot of sense now, right? Because what 00:38:41.670 --> 00:38:46.610 is it that I was so angry and spiteful with myself 00:38:46.610 --> 00:38:51.369 for? A lot of it was all the stuff that I hated 00:38:51.369 --> 00:38:58.980 and hated my dad for. But it's just... A million 00:38:58.980 --> 00:39:05.639 times harder to actually stop hating yourself. 00:39:05.719 --> 00:39:08.940 Like, I don't know why it was so hard, but it 00:39:08.940 --> 00:39:12.739 was really hard for me to just stop hating myself. 00:39:16.280 --> 00:39:18.139 And that's honestly the only thing that really 00:39:18.139 --> 00:39:21.159 changed. Like, it's not as if my dad isn't who 00:39:21.159 --> 00:39:24.639 he is. It's not as if he doesn't still make the 00:39:24.639 --> 00:39:26.980 same mistakes. It's not as if, like, he doesn't. 00:39:27.599 --> 00:39:32.079 He still seems to make poor decisions on a lot 00:39:32.079 --> 00:39:36.239 of ends, right? He is who he's always been. He 00:39:36.239 --> 00:39:41.099 hasn't changed one bit. So you think, like, why 00:39:41.099 --> 00:39:43.699 would I end up being able to forgive him? Because 00:39:43.699 --> 00:39:47.659 it wasn't about him. It was about me. It was 00:39:47.659 --> 00:39:53.639 about me having to learn that he and I, like, 00:39:53.699 --> 00:39:59.059 maybe all people, We're just all broken in some 00:39:59.059 --> 00:40:03.219 way. And until I was able to kind of accept that 00:40:03.219 --> 00:40:07.539 about myself and stop hating myself, I just had 00:40:07.539 --> 00:40:11.420 a harder time not being able to do that for other 00:40:11.420 --> 00:40:17.300 people. I can't tell you that I don't have daddy 00:40:17.300 --> 00:40:19.519 issues. I still have daddy issues. I mean, I 00:40:19.519 --> 00:40:23.360 am just like my dad is on an incomplete, broken... 00:40:24.300 --> 00:40:27.960 fallible human being with flaws and vices to 00:40:27.960 --> 00:40:33.119 work through. I can be an uncaring, unfeeling, 00:40:33.360 --> 00:40:39.960 inconsiderate ass at times. It doesn't necessarily 00:40:39.960 --> 00:40:41.940 define me. I don't know if any of these things 00:40:41.940 --> 00:40:45.420 do, but there are moments when I do things that 00:40:45.420 --> 00:40:49.219 are irresponsible or thoughtless or bad decisions. 00:40:51.840 --> 00:40:56.679 All I can tell you is that at least how I feel 00:40:56.679 --> 00:41:01.579 about myself, it has shifted to some degree. 00:41:01.699 --> 00:41:06.400 It took years, but it's shifted. And it's not 00:41:06.400 --> 00:41:09.360 like an intellectual shift. It's not like a cognitive 00:41:09.360 --> 00:41:14.300 understanding of people as all just people and 00:41:14.300 --> 00:41:17.159 that's just how they are, right? You know, the 00:41:17.159 --> 00:41:19.099 way that people just generically say that all 00:41:19.099 --> 00:41:22.130 people aren't perfect, right? And cognitively, 00:41:22.130 --> 00:41:24.550 yeah, that always made sense. You know, just 00:41:24.550 --> 00:41:26.610 like cognitively it made sense that my dad had 00:41:26.610 --> 00:41:28.969 a different worldview because he grew up in a 00:41:28.969 --> 00:41:31.989 different place in a different era, right? No, 00:41:32.090 --> 00:41:35.409 this feels different because it's like a heart 00:41:35.409 --> 00:41:39.349 transformation, right? Where you really actually 00:41:39.349 --> 00:41:43.369 feel okay. It doesn't mean you approve of everything 00:41:43.369 --> 00:41:45.849 about yourself. It doesn't mean you, you know, 00:41:45.869 --> 00:41:51.570 just, you know. You're not just like letting 00:41:51.570 --> 00:41:53.409 yourself off the hook to do any irresponsible 00:41:53.409 --> 00:41:55.989 thing, right? It's not like that. But there's 00:41:55.989 --> 00:41:58.130 a sense in which I just am at peace with myself. 00:41:58.829 --> 00:42:02.630 And what's crazy is that even regardless of how 00:42:02.630 --> 00:42:04.449 other people are, whether or not they grow and 00:42:04.449 --> 00:42:07.670 change, whether or not, you know, whoever they 00:42:07.670 --> 00:42:10.530 are, people are people. They're going to be who 00:42:10.530 --> 00:42:13.309 they are. Like, what's crazy is that it doesn't 00:42:13.309 --> 00:42:17.940 seem to matter. Because what mattered... For 00:42:17.940 --> 00:42:20.519 me, it was more that I found this change in myself 00:42:20.519 --> 00:42:24.539 and the way that I view and feel about myself. 00:42:27.820 --> 00:42:30.780 It's my heart that has finally accepted that 00:42:30.780 --> 00:42:35.119 he, my dad, and I were broken. And in that brokenness, 00:42:35.119 --> 00:42:40.940 we've come to find love and forgiveness. So to 00:42:40.940 --> 00:42:44.539 you, dad, thank you for doing what you could 00:42:44.539 --> 00:42:49.280 for me and the rest of the family. I can't imagine 00:42:49.280 --> 00:42:53.440 how hard life has been for you, but you lived 00:42:53.440 --> 00:42:56.760 it the best you can. And I hope I can do the 00:42:56.760 --> 00:42:56.960 same.