
Why you should listen to your parents even if they do not know better than you do
A crisis is a term characterized as the decisive moment in a situation. It is the time when there is no more possibility to postpone the decision-making and where you as the centerpiece of the event have to navigate on to a set path through which you will actively impact the future outcome of the crisis itself. Depending on your willingness to talk about the risk of every possible outcome before you are ultimately pressed to make one, the result of the crisis can be very different. This fallout can broadly be divided into three different possible outcomes:
- You manage to recover the status quo ante. The situation returns to be roughly the same as before the trigger point of the crisis
- The situation turns out to be better than before the trigger point of the crisis.
- The crisis turns into a catastrophe. In this case, bad decision-making and a lack of communication lead to the deconstruction of the original structure concerned with the crisis. E.g. the business goes bankrupt or the person of power resigns their post.
Res Dubia
Regardless of how the crisis´ outcome is decided, during the phase that leads up to this, there are a number of features which characterize this latency phase and which actively contribute to the final results. Firstly, a very common notion of this phase is that there is the urge of the individual or the group held responsible to find a scapegoat for their failures to justify the precarious situation they are in. And since that is bad, it is as much imprinted in human nature as getting up in the morning and having a shower. When you fail at something, of course you would rather be blaming another person for your loss rather than having to examine your very own character and personality. More than anything, it is more convenient to blame.
This is the same for all crises, regardless of scale or impact.
Secondly, besides looking to blame someone, in times of a crisis, we find ourselves in what Rhetoricians call a res dubia (case of doubt). Here, the possibilities for the orator find their potential for peak performance. Because people are confused and intolerant for the newly found ambiguity, they look for someone to guide them, someone who will be the beacon of hope, light and love in the times of darkness and uncertainty. This makes them more receptive towards other people´s opinions, particularly the ones they had good ties to before the crisis commenced. This is the realm of Rhetoric, the paradise of the orator and it´s the seed for change.

So, where do you plant it?
This question brings me to the beginning of the article. Like we had already established before, you can only “escape” the crisis by firstly, keeping the communication at a maximum and most important of all, by not hiding yourself from making a decision. Casey Neistat does not waste his breath in reiterating his phrase “Just make a decision, in the end, you´ll find a way to make it right.” And that´s true. Whether or not you are gonna face it head on or not, a decision will HAVE to be made in order for the crisis not to mutate into the face of absolute hell. And if it is one thing which you want to avoid in face of the crisis, then it is letting the bulldog turn into a dragon, because it takes a lot more sacrifice and energy to slay this potential dragon than it does do calm the dog.
But what if you do not know how to calm it?
You ask for advice. Because there is always someone knowing better than you do. A reasonable assumption, as all the time you were young you figured you had to learn a lot about how this world works and what you can do and cannot do. You needed to learn to say ´thank you´ and ´please´ and that kicking a hole in your brother´s door would get you grounded for two weeks. Oh, this beautiful naivety. Looking back on it now, isn´t it unbelievable how many things we learned in the course of growing up? Just think about that for a second. And with that, also consider all the things you once knew and now forgot. So, you ask your parents what to do in the face of your suffering. Be it a breakup, a tough exam or just the decision whether or not to apply for a job or rather pursue a career as a writer. And ironically, we somehow assume that our parents always know the answer to everything. Not only on how to calm the dog, but also how to conquer the castle, how to fell a tree or why the hell the object of gold is actually playing the least amount of golf (yeah, let that one sink in).
We assume that they know everything, and rightfully so, because it always really seemed like they do. They knew why the shower would not turn on, why it is bad to eat sand and why your head hurts after you get a football to the face. And then you sit there, with a cool pack covering your face and you wonder:”Damn, is there anything they do not know?”
Limited Knowledge
Yes there is, a lot. Because, thank God, there are so many beautiful questions no one of us knows the answer to. Two of them are gorgeously illustrated in this TED video from a few years ago. I still watch it every know and then to remind myself of how little I, how little we, actually know.
Because being omniscient would rob is of our limitations and the capability to break through them. In short, the whole potential emerging from the res dubia, the Unknown, the chaos, would be lost because we would not be able to speak any Good or order into this world, and that is the true Chaos, the one where none of us ever wants to go.
Our parents definitely know more than we do, it is simply a matter of experience and knowledge, and that is good. The roots a child will get from his/her parents should be grounded in their own experiences and education. That is what gives the child the necessary perspective and humility to grow up safe and sound. But there will come a time when the child will outgrow its root and plant its own seed. There comes a point in time where everyone of us needs to stand and move their own. And with that comes the obstacle and the challenge of counting on what we know, and base our actions on that to make new experiences and shape our own views and perspectives.
This is where even your parents cannot help you anymore. This is where you are on your own
Carry yourself
It is actually quite ironic to think that after all this time when you assumed your parents always knew a way to go and what decision to make, that after all this time, you are supposed to believe that they in fact know even less than you do. Aren´t they the ones who carried you when you got hurt, who showed you where to go when you could not see your hands before your eyes.
When thinking about this question of how little or how much we know and how that differs from the parental generation, I am always reminded of a certain episode of one of my, if not the favourite TV shows How I Met Your Mother. In this show, the protagonists Ted Moseby tells his children in a very extensive length of nine seasons the full story of how he met their mother. It is a great story, and I can only recommend every one of you to give it a watch.
This section is going to include a minor spoiler which will however not take away of the beauty of the story as a whole.
Ted´s best friend is a guy named Marshall Eriksen. He is a big, warm and loving man who moved in with Ted when they attended Wesleyan University together, they have been best friends ever since. As the story unfolds, Marshall one day receives the message from his wife Lily that his father, Marvin Eriksen, has died from a heart attack. In utter shock and despair, Marshall departs to his home town St. Cloud in Minnesota to organize and attend his father´s funeral. Through the course of the events, Marshall recognizes how broken his mother is by Marvin´s death and decides to stay with her for a few days to help her out in the house and spend her some good old family company. But at some point, he comes to the decision that he has to get back to New York to resume his life with his job and his friends and that he can´t just hide away from all the responsibilities. Upon telling this to Ted, he brings up an anecdote about his father on how they would always take a vacation to a lake which would require an overnight road trip. Marshall would never be able to see beyond the windscreen of the car. There was darkness all around them, but he was never afraid because he knew that his dad was at the wheel and he always knew the right way. His dad was in control. But now that Marshall had to take a similar road trip, he found himself on the steering wheel. There, he experiences a vision of his dad sitting in the back of the car, and he told him the following:

“I couldn´t see worth damn thing either buddy, I just kept driving forward, hoping for the best.”
And this right there is what I want you to take from this article. Your parents, other people, nobody knows as much as you may presume or expect. In this world, nobody knows anything. Your mum may know how to bake a cake, your dad may know how to do the taxes or fix the car, but both of them most likely don´t know anything about Instagram or being a student in the 21st century. And as arbitrary as that may seem, we all know something others do not, and that counts for your parents as well. You know best. You can always ask for advice, trust other people, seek help with something, but ultimately it remains up to you, and only you to take that step, to drive that car in the darkness or to open that new book. You are in control and that will always be the case. Remind yourself of that next time you feel like you are lost.
Just keep driving, and hope for the best.
