Dream Projection

At Truman’s recent visitation, he and my family came up to SGV to hang out for a whole Sunday. We were having a homemade seafood boil later that evening at our apartment. To kill time midday, we played a few tabletop games, including We’re Not Really Strangers. At first, the game involved just me, Truman, and Jackie. Peter had left to attend some work meetings, and my parents were busy preparing the food.

We’re Not Really Strangers is a game in which participants get to know each other better through a series of simple questions transcribed on the back of paper cards. These questions come in three tiers, from superficial to “deeper” ones. The first few cards started off fairly straight forward, allowing the three of us to talk about things like our first impressions of each other. Of course, having known Truman all my life, these questions were a little easy for me.

As my parents wrapped up cooking, they joined us in the living room and actually engaged in some of the questions. We used the cards to help guide some of the conversation topics. I am genuinely surprised at how much my parents participated especially as we ramped up the invasive questioning. Perhaps the topic that elicited the most conversation was one on regarding dreams, both of the past and the future.

As Jackie, Truman, and I talked about our dreams, the discussion heavily revolved around the future. Jackie dreams of a life filled with meaningful connection and social fulfillment. I dream of raising a family and living a simpler, more idyllic life. Truman dreams of having a house full of dogs and cats. My parents, on the other hand, spoke of their dreams only in the past tense, including those which they had to sacrifice.

For my mom, she immigrated to the United States as a young teenager. Born and raised in rural Vietnam, coming overseas presented a massive opportunity. As the youngest of her many siblings, she had one of the better chances of learning and assimilating to a foreign land. When she was asked by Jackie her dreams back then, she solemnly mentioned that it was hard to have dreams when she had to figure out how to best support her family. This meant doing whatever would pay the bills—even going to the nail technician school (for which she had no passion) simply to make a living alongside many other Vietnamese diaspora.

This conversation with my mom saddened me for a variety of reasons. Several months ago, while Peter and I were having a casual lunch at a Hong Kong cafe, we overheard a young man about our age getting into a heated debate with his parents. He was making accusations about how the previous generations had it so much easier, and how it is so much harder to make a decent living now. This young man was arguing that all the low-hanging fruits of opportunity were already picked by his predecessors. More insultingly, he was accusing his parents of not understanding “struggle.”

The qualities of our lives now are objectively leagues better than that of our parents’. Thanks to both advancements in technology as well as their hard work, we now live rather comfortably. Through this lens, my mom’s “dreams” were realized. It is a fairly common Asian trope that our parents just desire for their children’s lives to be better than their own. Though noble, I don’t think it makes the situation any less tragic in that my mom’s life was one of self-sacrifice, and that all the opportunity presented to her was only utilized for her future family. Even at the tender age of 16, she could not set her sights on any grand, self-serving goals aside from family stability.

During the discussion, I couldn’t help but let my thoughts wander to some core teachings of Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist I often quote. For him, meaning could be found in all venues of suffering. Thus, life is not unbearable because of suffering—rather, life becomes more bearable as we find meaning in that pain (i.e. meanings to our existences). The true tragedy in life is to look back one day and realize that we’ve not lived up to our potentials, dreams, goals, or even values. It is in such a moment that we understand our lives to have been meaningless. We may not be able to control the circumstances of our suffering, but we can choose the ways in which we respond.

I don’t think my mom ever had or will have such regrets. In fact, I think she is genuinely happy and proud of all she accomplished. Perhaps it is my own projected Westernized ideals which is the root of my sadness for her; truly a privilege of agency and individualism granted to me by my parents. Nevertheless, I still cannot help but wonder if they ever experience pangs of grief for versions of their selves that were never realized, futures which they once envisioned but were cut short. More understandable than ever is the frustration that our parents experience when they watch us flounder our potentials—something for which they paid an exceedingly steep price.

My dad’s journey was fairly similar, except that he arrived in the states as a young adult. Unlike my mom, he did have the opportunity to attend college. As he was a few years older than his college cohort, he often felt as though he was not as bright or could speak English well enough to enter a more “competitive” industry like medicine. He always admired his classmates and even his coworkers whose children could pursue these traditionally impressive careers. He divulged that his one dream was that Truman and I could one day find successful careers of our own.

Needless to say, Truman and I were able to make my dad’s dreams come true. But like my mom, he had to figure out how to best provide for the family given his circumstances. I don’t think his career was his “calling” or “chosen” profession by any means. In that way, it can be easy to see it as he had to settle in order to support the greater beckoning of family rearing. My dad would never admit to having any regrets. And in our own candid conversations, I honestly do not think he holds any regrets. He’s immensely proud of the accomplishments between myself and Truman. We’ve been able to bring honor to the family. Through their sacrifices, they could then breathe life into my and Truman’s dreams.

Peter and I revisit this topic very often. While not the happiest of topics, I do think it keeps us grounded in acknowledging our blessings. We see that relative to others in modern society, and certainly compared to our parents, our lives are so, so good. How could we complain of the state of our lives with every advantage handed to us? After all, comparison is the thief of joy. With this perspective, we do not feel badly about the sacrifices we choose to make everyday in order to ensure the livelihoods of our (potential) future children. I think the idiom that we become our parents is a true one, especially as our dreams evolve and coalesce not only with our individual goals but that of the future generation. Perhaps that is the eventual and inescapable reality of parenthood.