Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we are going to talk about families and what makes them happy and what makes them not so happy. My family is not perfect and we’ve had our own squabbles, but I love my family and I think we’re pretty good. I think what makes a family happy is a lack of putting someone’s expectations onto someone else, being helpful when we can, and people trying their best to live their best lives. When it comes to my family, I don’t judge anyone for the decisions they make, but I’m not going to take someone else’s problems if the decisions they make turn out bad.
And if I do give money to a family member, I’m not going to expect to get it back. I’ve had family members help me out financially and I still plan to pay them back one day and I’m working on it. So forgiving is a big part of having a happy family and not having expectations outside of someone’s capabilities. You can have higher standards for someone, but it’s best if you set the standard. I’ve been trying to create a successful business for a while now and no one in my family has given me any push back on my decision. They know I’m living life on my own terms.
When it comes to unhappy families, it is usually coming from unrealistic expectations for someone, trying to be an important family, instead of being a family that does important things, and families living outside of realistic expectations. A family could have parents that work really hard, but they sacrifice time with the family or their health. This can cause resentment and other issues that can make the family unhappy. There can be one sibling where they a lot of health issues and this is causing a lot of financial and emotional stress on the family.
What I think what makes a happy family is being happy with what they have instead of being happy with what they get. Yes, it’s nice to have a family that can go on vacations and makes memories, and as a kid, the only vacations we went on we’re either to the beach in Oregon or we would go see family in Mexico. I don’t blame my parents for anything and they did what they thought was best with their resources. What I do appreciate as a kid is that my parents gave me an opportunity to go to a good school, they allowed me to do sports, and allowed me to be me, and allow me to discover who I needed to be.
Once you start having resentment, then that is not going to create a good family. Someone in the family might be taking care of one family member and be resentful that the other family members are not helping out, but that family member might be dealing with their own stuff. They might have something going at work that is causing a lot of stress and they bring that stress to their family situation. There can be many things that cause a family to be unhappy. But when it comes to being happy, I think it comes from accepting people as they are and to check in on people to see how they are doing. I try to send a message to a family member to see how they are doing on a routine basis. I don’t want it to be two years where I don’t talk to someone. I’m not perfect with every family member but I do what I can.
I think we should strive to be a happy family, but a happy family requires work and open communication. An unhappy family doesn’t work at it and doesn’t communicate. You also have to realize that your family is a product of their upbringing and their nature. So not everything is within their control for how they act and some family members don’t know any better. So they have to be shown what a happy family looks like. When my parents told me how they were raised and what was the situation they had growing up, I can see why they turned out the way they did and I love them for how they are. When I look at my sisters, I see how their upbringing caused them to be who they are today. There is no right or wrong answer to be happy as long as it doesn’t harm people, and I’m happy for the family I have. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it wasn’t for them.
And that’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, all happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. With some families, people are not going to change at all. I remember seeing a family that was ruined by the social norms of the 1950s where boys were honored and women were second-class citizens, and it was probably going to take a lot of family therapy to help turn things around, but probably they will never get it. Hopefully, the next generation can learn from the previous one on what not to do and what to do to create a happy family. And families can have moments of happiness but it can turn sour quickly if the underlying issues are not taking care of or they just need to have a situation run it’s course before they can start being happy again. The key lesson from today’s podcast is about not passing judgment and being helpful when you can. You don’t know a person or family’s history of what caused them to get to their situation. But hopefully, we can set the example and show compassion when it is needed. We can create happy families but it requires work, communication, and having the right expectations for our family members. And if you don’t know how to do this, please go see a professional help you out.
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