Prevention is preferable to searching for cures

One of the hard parts of being an immigrant is how little things can spiral into big things because you don’t know the language. Once, my mom signed the back of a check she received in the mail, not understanding that once she deposited it, it was a contractual agreement for dial-up internet services. She didn’t own a computer. I remember when this happened, I was upset. It took months of several calls, fights with customer service, threats of reporting to the state, to get the contract terminated.

I told her, you could have prevented all this by just asking me to read the mailing. Having to constantly clean up these types of situations caused me to become very avoidant of pain and suffering.

In just about every situation, I tend to go over every single possible scenario and outcome, before making a decision. In many ways, it has served me well, in others, not so much. So, you can imagine, when I first read this Ben Franklin quote, it resonated with me!

And it has carried over to the way I have handled the raising of children, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.

It’s just easier to learn from those that went before us and figure out how we want to handle certain situations before they happen. Life really isn’t all that unique. Our experiences will not be new. Someone will have had something similar happen.

And pretty early on in life, we all started hearing how hard teens are, right? Maybe we had older siblings that caused a lot of heartache, and we’d hear our parents talk about it all the time.  Everyone is always complaining about the teen years and all the turmoil the teen years bring. Then if we know they are coming, why not try to figure how to minimize the pain? Probably can’t fully avoid it, but doesn’t hurt to try. And honestly, that’s what is most needed. Effort.

I’ve known enough families where parents were brought to their knees because of their children. By staying humble, continuing to learn, and be willing to change, and understanding that prevention is preferable, we will be able to avoid looking for the cures.