The trials of life, brought on by his not listening to his father’s last words, and his trust toward his eldest brother, well, that, is a lesson learned all right! Translated…
Liu is my coworker, also my younger brother-in-law too. He is the youngest of three brothers, and took care of his father who’s a chart reader of life. He’d told us, that before his father passed, he seemed to want to say something, but, because he had oral cancer, he couldn’t articulate, and so, Liu handed his father a pen, and his father, with his trembling hands, wrote out, “Careful, your brothers……”, then, he’d, swallowed down his last breath.
Liu took his father’s final words to mind, and, although he’s very generous and uncalculating, with a TON of friends, but he’d carefully weighed and measured his capabilities, and, he was able to, successfully, live through years of peaceful life.
Later on, his eldest brother who worked in Taipei started calling him up all of a sudden, and, every couple of days, paid visits to his place in the mountains, kept brain washing him on how he needed to set his goals higher, how he’d needed to seek out fame and fortune to certain degrees, and claimed, that he knew ways, of striking it rich with investments.
Naturally, Liu let his guards down around his own brothers, believed that his eldest brother works as a high-end manager at an oil company, and his eldest sister-in-law is a school teacher of a public high school, they couldn’t possible, scam him? And, because of this one thought, Liu gave ALL of his savings of over eight million dollars to his eldest brother to put into the stock markets for investments.
And, seeing how the prices are steadily rising, he’d urged his eldest brother to sell, but, his eldest brother didn’t, and just consoled him, “There’s still chance for it to get higher still, if you sell, it would be such a shame.” And, after Liu had, pressed him again and again, his eldest brother started just ignoring him completely. And, when Liu finally realized, that something wasn’t quite right, he’d gone to confront his eldest brother, and, his eldest brother spread his arms out, told him that he’d, gambled away ALL the money already. And Liu fell into the pits of hell all of a sudden, and, the family started living in the trials, putting aside his three young children, his mother who had cancer needed the huge sums of medical money, the debtors, the banks kept pressed them to pay up the loans, and, we couldn’t help him, being average wage-earners that we are, even IF we felt bad for him.
Thankfully though, Liu and his younger sister worked together, and, several years later, they’d finally, cleared UP all the debts, and he had the extra money to buy a piece of land, and, started running a farm well, the couple lived on in leisurely on their patch of land now. As for that AWFUL eldest brother, not only did his wife divorce him, took his children away, nobody knows what became of him then.
As Liu told about this part of his past, he’d talked on it so plainly, without any emotions, without any bad things to say about his eldest brother, instead, he was, grateful toward his eldest brother that pushed him down into the water when his life was going so well, otherwise, he couldn’t have come to understand, just how precious everything he had was.
So, this man’s values were amazing, although his eldest brother cheated him, he’d not wanted revenge, instead, he showed gratitude, for his eldest brother, who’d, taught him this lesson he’d needed to learn, the HARD way, but, had he paid heed to his father’s last words, then, this wouldn’t have happened, but, he didn’t heed his father’s words, and, he’d learned the lessons, the HARD way, gotten BURNED by his family.
Life, the Obstacle Course 