Dear Felix:

I didn’t notice your post right before I submitted mine. You shared that your mother often, or always tends to do things for you, so as a result you are a passive person: you don’t initiate helping with things, like frying the food during the recent barbecue event. Your neighbor, present at the barbecue, told you to “go try frying the food.. if you never try, you never know”. You felt uncomfortable when she said that. You know that your mother talks about you to people, telling then that you are passive, which is the reason the neighbor told you what she did.

Your father is also passive: he too didn’t initiate helping with the barbecue either, and he talked to only one person during the event. As a result of this experience, and similar experiences, you want to go abroad again, as a student, and not be home with your parents.

Well, Felix, I understand your frustration: your mother does things for you and then he complains that you are passive. You don’t feel close to either one of your parents, and I don’t think that you like either one of them.

You do have the option of living away from your parents’ home, if not now, then later, following you planning how  to make it happen and then executing the plan. Otherwise, and before such a plan is put into action, look for ways to initiate helping out, just for the practice of it.

anita