O, Brilliant Kids

Posted September 1st, 2008 by Jim B.

I came across an article today that reminded me of a lesson I'm sure we all have to relearn many times (sometimes in quite painful ways!), a lesson I expressed in a previous blog. It's unfortunate we forget sometimes the most important lessons we learn!

So Ben Stein reminds us:

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“O, brilliant kids, I was a fool just like you. I was in my mid-40s before I properly thanked my father for his decades of hard work — paying for me to laze around in the cars he bought me, to get drunk in the frat house whose dues he paid, to spend the afternoons with my girlfriends looking at trees and rivers while Pop worked and got so anxious that he took up smoking three packs of Kents a day.

“O, brilliant kids, you get to put on the garments of the morally righteous and upstanding while your parents work — because mothers work now and always have worked — and your parents must say, ‘Yes, sir,’ or ‘No, sir,’ to those who hire them. O, golden children, you get to talk about how you’ll never ‘sell out,’ and meanwhile your parents stay up late in torment, thinking of how they can pay your tuition. Because, brilliant kids, work (business) involves exhaustion and eating humble pie and going on even when you think you can’t. And you are the beneficiaries of it in your gilded youth.

“Be smarter than Ben Stein ever was. Be a better person than I ever was. Right now, today, thank your parents for working to support you. Don’t act as if it’s the divine right of students. Get right up in their faces and say, ‘Thank you for what you do so I can live like this.’ Say something. Say it, so that when they’re at O’Hare or Dallas-Fort Worth and they’ve just learned that their flight is canceled and they’ll have to stay overnight at the airport, they will know you appreciate them.

“Get it in your heads that if you throw away your moral duties to your parents, you are thieves. You were born on third base and your parents put you there, and you think you hit a triple. It’s not true. It’s time to give back.

“`Attention must be paid,’ as Arthur Miller said. So start now, and make it a habit to be grateful to your parents. Say you’re grateful and mean it. Do it now, however young or old you are. Do it on Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, every day.”

--Ben Stein

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“So, therefore, you are babes until you become perfect.”
--Jesus, from The Book of Thomas the Contender in the Nag Hammadi Library

Thanks Jim, I enjoyed

giovanna's picture
On September 1st, 2008 Giovanna Nava says:

Thanks Jim, I enjoyed reading the article very much.
Gio

Thanks Jim, that's

davidg's picture
On September 1st, 2008 David G says:

Thanks Jim, that's interesting.

I've been finding a bit recently that I never really understood how much my parents did for me while I was at home, until I moved out and had to do things for myself.

And I just realised that I probably have absolutely no idea the extent of what my divine parents do for me.

Thanks for bringing this up.

David

While the article is true,

scot's picture
On September 2nd, 2008 scot says:

While the article is true, it is more than natural for kids to live for their parents, too. We don't even know we are living for our parents, most of the time. My parents are both dead, but they do live on inside of me. And sadly, I can see that now much better than I could when they were alive.

That's a great, great comment, David! (About the divine parents.)

Yes to me it's more of a

ruttergod's picture
On September 2nd, 2008 Jim B. says:

Yes to me it's more of a reminder for gratitude in general. One specific time in my life I prayed every day for a friend of mine, and I could see definite changes in his life, and he had no clue why. That got me thinking how I never know what it is that's holding me up. If I'm doing well, or if something works out in my life, I sometimes will think I did it, but then I have to realize that I have no clue what is holding me up, my divine parents, my friends, the Masters and teachers spreading this teaching, etc.. So to see that I think is important, and to be grateful for the help we can't necessarily see.

Thanks for this blog,

pavlin's picture
On September 3rd, 2008 pavlin says:

Thanks for this blog, Jim.

This reminds me when some time ago I was very surprised to read in one of Samael's books that our Divine Mother and Father have to suffer a great deal so that we can be free from our egos. I thought it was weird, as for me, they were these perfect beings that I am somehow connected to and on whose mercy I was depending to try to change myself. They give strength, experiences, situations that can help with overcoming negativity, but they're don't suffer. Why suffer when you have no egos? Some time passed and I had a symbolic dream with them, I saw what they are going through and it didn't seem easy at all! I don't think I'll realise soon how much I owe to them.

It must be more or less the same with my physical parents.

lucky us we still have some time to try to be good children

I had not seen my physical

Vadim's picture
On September 3rd, 2008 Vadim says:

I had not seen my physical parents for a month and was just about to drive to the airport to pick them up...

I've decided to check once again the flight arrivals and have realized that I still have some time left, so it was a time to read your blog.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for it, Jim.

From what I understand and perceive, this attitude of gratitude and giving to others is so important for everyone. We are not shells living separated from each other, we are beings with hearts capable to love and to care about others.
There are many people and beings who had helped us, help us right now, and will help us...even if we may not remember, can't see it, or don't realize it yet...

"Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way"
Native American saying