Stepping Up As An Example

Today it’s all about you and what is going on around us.

Why? You are an important person.

If you are following my Blog you have a child or even children, respective you have relatives or friends who have.

The last days I recognized something that made me angry. Maybe you have noticed it as well. Like you I’m in a variety of Facebook -, Instagram, WhatsApp and WeChat groups and I’m following a few Blogs and Vlogs. Most of them are related to Hong Kong, children, school, family and friends.

Beside the daily challenges you and I have for schooling these days, have you noticed something in your news feed?

More and more people and businesses are trying to scare you over their advertisements to trigger your instincts and bring you into a mode of fear. – Shut your doors and windows, stop going out and look for their products. – 

I’m not saying you should be careless. Staying safe and healthy is the number one priority for you and the ones under your protection. Following the best practice recommendations form government, health organizations, doctors and using your common sense will serve you well.

Your daily life is today different as it was half a year before and it will be different how you will live in a few years.

There is so much information around you, which one do you prefer to follow?

• The negative or the positive ones?
• The discouraging or encouraging ones?
• The dark or the enlightened ones?

And what is the news industry feeding to you? The media are more interested in bad news as good news. Since that is what sales and keeps people hanging on to.

Where do you stay? Or better where you want to be?

And what do you want for your child or children, are they afraid this day?

When you teach and guide by example are you stimulating the positive or the negative things around your child?

Do you want to provide your child and children with confidence or uncertainty?

A lot of questions, but the good news is you should have some time to think about them. Since you are looked up in self-quarantine, work from home and you save the commute time or you simply have not to travel, you should have some time. Or you have time to get closer with your offsprings or the chance to reconnect.

It’s also a time to look out for your neighbors and reconnect with friends you haven’t talked for a while. Can you help them or they need someone who is listening to them?

For example before Chinese New Year I was for my day job on a business trip to Japan and my wife and also colleagues in the office asked me to buy a few boxes of the surgical masks for them, as the supply in Hong Kong started to get tight. I had some space in my luggage. I went one evening out to the next drug store, but there was already a very long line in front of the cashiers. Each of them with shopping baskets full of masks. All masks in the shop were gone. 

There was a very similar picture in all drugstores, pharmacies and supermarkets I entered that evening. After 2 ½ hours running from one shop to another, I decided to have a late dinner first and I would go to the first drugstore close to my hotel again. Normally I had just asked the staff in the shop if they had some more masks in their storage room, but with the long queue I skipped it. 

That was what I did and had luck. I could get the desired boxes with 50 masks per box  for about 4 USD (398 JPY) in total and my colleagues were happy that I could help them out.

I also bought some boxes for our family and we could share these facial masks with friends and some new neighbors that just moved to Hong Kong from Singapore. They have a newborn and a 3 year old daughter. They had no chance to get any facial masks. When we met them on our afternoon walk, during Chinese New Year, we were happy to help them out.

And a week later the same box I brought back for my colleagues and friend was on sale on a social platform for 850 HKD (~109 USD) per box.