The Effects of Parent Conflict on Children

Dear Sophia,

I signed the paper work for Alex and Audrey's passport extension as you requested this morning. Thank you for asking and the opportunity to sign. You have no idea how much it means to me especially after all these years that I have no access to them. No one knows how much sleepless night I have thinking of them. And no one can possibly understand and feel how much I miss them and how much love I have for them.

I know that we had many differences between us in the past. Unfortunately, I can see, after all these years, time has not eased and diminished the many tensions between us. Ten years is a long time by any standard. It is perhaps long enough for me to accept what can and cannot be changed in our lives. I can only hope that we are wiser and happier.

Although I disagree with your conclusion that it is better for Alex and Audrey not see their real father for almost ten year, I am starting to understand and perhaps accept the thing that I cannot change. After doing some research and reading on what best for our children, one hit me the most strongly in particular, and I quote,

“We can understand and empathize with the spouse who feels wronged and wants revenge, or the spouse who is overwhelmed with anxiety at the thought of losing the children, or the spouse who prefers to forget that the marriage ever was. But using the children to get revenge, to cope with anxiety, to erase the past, is unacceptable. Parents must hold themselves to a higher standard. They must have the courage to face what they are doing to their children. They must honor their mission to safeguard their children’s welfare, even when the darkest feelings beckon them to dim their awareness of their betrayal of their children. Divorce poison must be left in the bottle. Children deserve no less.” - Richard A. Warshak, Divorce Poison. New York: Regan Books, 2001.

To me, it is very clear that in order for us to “honor the mission to safeguard our children’s welfare”, we must first find away to overcome our past differences. It is not our divorce that is impacting the development of our children, it is rather our continuing parental conflict that will injure them. Often severely.

May I share my findings please: http://www.insightpsychological.com/Library/Effect%20of%20Parental%20conflict%20on%20children.pdf

Despite the outcome, I wish you well Sophia. I wish you and Mark happiness in the new family.

Finally, Please send my love to Alex and Audrey. More importantly, please tell them that they have a father who is far from perfect, who loves them very much and misses them terribly, and that he will always be there for them.

May GOD protects them, guides them, and blesses with health, peace and happiness.

Sincerely,
Rudy

The Keys to Happiness, and Why We Don't Use Them

Robin Lloyd
LiveScience.com
Tue Feb 28, 11:02 AM ET

"It requires some effort to achieve a happy outlook on life, and most people don't make it." —Author and researcher Gregg Easterbrook

Psychologists have recently handed the keys to happiness to the public, but many people cling to gloomy ways out of habit, experts say.

Polls show Americans are no happier today than they were 50 years ago despite significant increases in prosperity, decreases in crime, cleaner air, larger living quarters and a better overall quality of life.

So what gives?

Happiness is 50 percent genetic, says University of Minnesota researcher David Lykken. What you do with the other half of the challenge depends largely on determination, psychologists agree. As Abraham Lincoln once said, "Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be."

What works, and what doesn't

Happiness does not come via prescription drugs, although 10 percent of women 18 and older and 4 percent of men take antidepressants, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Anti-depressants benefit those with mental illness but are no happiness guarantee, researchers say.

Nor will money or prosperity buy happiness for many of us. Money that lifts people out of poverty increases happiness, but after that, the better paychecks stop paying off sense-of-well-being dividends, research shows.

One route to more happiness is called "flow," an engrossing state that comes during creative or playful activity, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has found. Athletes, musicians, writers, gamers, and religious adherents know the feeling. It comes less from what you're doing than from how you do it.

Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California at Riverside has discovered that the road
toward a more satisfying and meaningful life involves a recipe repeated in schools, churches and synagogues. Make lists of things for which you're grateful in your life, practice random acts of kindness, forgive your enemies, notice life's small pleasures, take care of your health, practice positive thinking, and invest time and energy into friendships and family.

The happiest people have strong friendships, says Ed Diener, a psychologist University of Illinois. Interestingly his research finds that most people are slightly to moderately happy, not unhappy.

On your own

Some Americans are reluctant to make these changes and remain unmotivated even though our freedom to pursue happiness is written into the preamble of the Declaration of Independence.
Don't count on the government, for now, Easterbrook says.

Our economy lacks the robustness to sustain policy changes that would bring about more happiness, like reorienting cities to minimize commute times.
The onus is on us.

"There are selfish reasons to behave in altruistic ways," says Gregg Easterbrook, author of "The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse" (Random House, 2004).
"Research shows that people who are grateful, optimistic and forgiving have better experiences with their lives, more happiness, fewer strokes, and higher incomes," according to Easterbrook. "If it makes world a better place at same time, this is a real bonus."

Diener has collected specific details on this. People who positively evaluate their well-being on average have stronger immune systems, are better citizens at work, earn more income, have better marriages, are more sociable, and cope better with difficulties.

Unhappy by default

Lethargy holds many people back from doing the things that lead to happiness.
Easterbrook, also a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institute, goes back to Freud, who theorized that unhappiness is a default condition because it takes less effort to be unhappy than to be happy.

"If you are looking for something to complain about, you are absolutely certain to find it," Easterbrook told LiveScience. "It requires some effort to achieve a happy outlook on life, and most people don't make it. Most people take the path of least resistance. Far too many people today don't make the steps to make their life more fulfilling one."

Faye Marie Chen Setiawan

We announce with great joy the birth of:

Faye Marie Chen Setiawan

Beijing, October 11, 2005 at 12:39 pm
2900 g and 48 cm

Anna Sophia and Rudy Chen Setiawan

Key to successful relationship

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Let me share an email I received from a friend which I think will stand a test of time even 30 years from now. I wish someone had send me this email long time ago.

An African proverb states, "Before you get married, keep both eyes open, and after you marry, close one eye."

Before you get involved and make a commitment to someone, don't let lust, desperation, immaturity, ignorance, pressure from others or a low self-esteem, make you blind to warning signs.

Keep your eyes open and don't fool yourself that you can change someone or that what you see as faults aren't really important.

Once you decide to commit to someone, over time their flaws, vulnerabilities, pet peeves, and differences will become more obvious..

If you love your mate and want the relationship to grow and evolve, you've got to learn to close one eye and not let every little thing bother you.
You and your mate have many different expectations, emotional needs, values, dreams, weaknesses, and strengths. You are two unique individualswho have decided to share a life together.

Neither of you are perfect, but are you perfect for each other? Do you bring out the best of each other? Do you compliment and compromise with each other, or do you compete, compare, and control? What do you bring to the relationship? Do you bring past relationships, past hurt, past mistrust, past pain?

You can't take someone to the altar to alter him or her. You can't make someone love you or make someone stay. If you develop self-esteem, spiritual discernment, and "a life," you won't find yourself making someone else responsible for your happiness or responsible for your pain.

Manipulation, control, jealousy, neediness, and selfishness are not the ingredients of a thriving, healthy, loving and lasting relationship.
Seeking status, sex, wealth, and security are the wrong reasons to be in a relationship. What keeps a relationship strong?

Communication, intimacy, trust, a sense of humor, sharing household tasks, some getaway time without business or children and daily exchanges (a meal, shared activity, a hug, a call, a touch, a note). Leave a nice message on their voicemail or send a nice email. Sharing common goals and interests.

Growth is important.

Grow together, not away from each other, giving each other space to growwithout feeling insecure. Allow your mate to have outside interest. You can't always be together. Give each other a sense of belonging and assurances of commitment. Don't try to control one another. Learn each other's family situation. Respect his or her parents regardless. Don't put pressure on each other for material goods. Remember for richer or for poorer. If these qualities are missing, the relationship will erode as resentment, withdrawal, abuse, neglect, dishonesty, and pain replace the passion. "Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think." The grass withers, the flowers fades.

Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight? Always try to be a little kinder than is necessary.

The difference between 'United' and 'Untied' is where you put the “i”.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

In praise of slowness by Luciano De Crescenzo

When you are young you never have the patience to wait; everything has to be done in a rush, in the shortest possible time, and maybe that’s why revolutions are almost always triggered by the young. It’s not so much a matter of left or right, but rather a question of age: At twenty you run, at forty you wait, at seventy you stand still. The three periods of life known, respectively, as ‘youth’, ‘maturity’, and ‘old age’ could thus aptly be renamed: ‘revolution’, ‘reflection’ and ‘television’. You start out wanting to change the world, and end up changing channels.

Time is strange: It never passes in the same way for two different people and, more peculiar still, it does not even always pass in the same way for any one individual. This was what the philosopher Henry Bergson meant at the beginning of the last century when he said: “Time is not measured with clocks, but with states of mind.” Spending an hour embracing a lover is one thing; an hour under the dentist’s drill is quite another. While with your loved one time flies, under the dentist’s drill, who knows why, time drags its feet.

Yet, if you think about it, slowness is one way of enjoying the beauty of life. You need to grow a little bit older to understand this. Indeed, the secret is not so much prolonging life as broadening it. A book read in a hurry will never be as good as one that you contemplate while reading. Lying in bed with a beautiful companion is even more enjoyable if, during a romantic interlude, we still find time to talk.

Try going to Capri, if possible in company of someone you love, and stop on the Monacone terrace to watch the Faraglioni rocks from above. If this is the first time you’ve ever seen them you will be awe-struck. But even if it is already the hundredth time you will still be amazed. It is important to view the panorama through two pairs of eyes: yours and the eyes of the person close to you. In short, it is a question of time: The eyes see, the brain thinks, the heart beats, and everything becomes even more beautiful. It’s a beauty I can recapture perhaps as much as a full year later, reliving it through my memories. It goes without saying that, at that moment on Capri, I have no impending commitments, no ferryboat that I absolutely need to catch, no plane waiting for me in Naples, and, above all, no nagging job to aggravate me. I know that sooner or later I must die and that the hour of my death, whether I stay gazing at the Faraglioni rocks or go on somewhere else, has already been set by destiny.

At this very moment, through the windows of my office I can see the Pantheon and I think of the Emperor Hadrian who said to the foreign immigrants of his days: “If you have a god to worship, do not worry. Choose a spot in the temple and worship your god, as and when you think is right. Just be sure not to disturb the people next to you.” It is no coincidence that the word Pantheon in Greek means ‘all gods’.

I ask myself if it is possible to do the following things in a hurry: pray, make love, mourn a lost friend, talk to a four-year old child, eat a plate of macaroni with ragout, drink a glass of red wine, remember your first true love, listen to a Beethoven symphony, and so on and so forth. That is impossible? Then three cheers for slowness – or to say it with Svetonius: “Festina lente” – make haste slowly.

Taken from Focus Online 1/2005

“If you try to match complexity with complexity, it will kill the organization.”

“If you try to match complexity with complexity, it will kill the organization.”

- Alan G. Lafley, CEO, P&G

Perhaps this was the result of my first marriage when we were all too caught up with the complexity of running too many things at the same time and forgot what was the most important.

It was complex enough that we both had two different starts up, new country and language, and new friends and colleagues when Alex was born. On the top of it, we both become extremely complex individuals with each other when we were faced with our lives complexity.

Ultimately, we killed the most important thing we had, the family that we started to build.

Simplifying our Lives

"By super-simplifying everything inside the company we can afford to spend a lot more time outside – with consumers, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders."

- A. G. Lafley, CEO, Procter & Gamble

Dearest Alex and Audrey,

Although the quote above is intended for business environment, I do believe that it relates quiet well to our personal lives as well. Often time we are very busy multitasking with so many activities such as schooling, working, side business, hobby, meeting friends, email, traveling, job search, learning new languages, meeting new friends etc. and we forgot what are truly important in our lives.

Having been facing the same situation at the moment, the quote hit me directly and made me realize what I need to do with my life. Anna and I are waiting for the birth of Faye Marie Chen Setiawan; while at the same time, I am facing career difficulties in the office and uncertainties about where we are going to be in the next three months. And the challenge doesn’t seem to get any easier.

I think it will help me and everyone around me much if I simplify and prioritize my life accordingly, so I can spend more time with the people who truly close in my hearts, you both, Faye Marie and Anna.

Love you always,
Dad

It is almost impossible to solve problem with the same thought process which created them

My dearest Alex and Audrey,

In one month from today, it will be exactly two years that your mother prevented me to see you both. Your 6th birthday is coming soon and I still do not have any idea if I can see you on your birthday next month.

I have been thinking hard about what had happened, and how things turn out the way it is. At the very least, I should take my share of the blame when relationship did not have the happy ending.

I am not sure where to start evaluating for what had happened. But at least I know that it is almost impossible to solve problem with the same thought process which created them. However, I have to admit that I do not have any new idea to even begin thinking about solving our problem. Legal approach will not solve our problem. Family and friends approach resulting in a dead end. I am sorry that I am not smart enough to solve this problem at this moment. I hope someday you forgive me for missing the most precious moment of your childhood.
At this moment, I only hope that time will heal and bridge the gap between your mother and I.

I love you both so very much. I will always do.
Dad.