Only fight when you can truly make a difference

With hesitation, this old owl choose to write, as he may face the risk of being tacked or perceived as "preachy". It is to offer an alternative view to his daughter.

There is no doubt that your participation as co-guider is out of noble intent.

It is to 're-pay' those fun you enjoyed under your senior-guiders in your younger days with the guide movement. In those days, because the seniors had gone to other colleges, so they do come back to assist in some orientation program, as such, they contributed limited time but still they did, and you want to do the same for the junior-guides. Being at the school itself, you will be call upon to assist more often that time will slip by so quickly without you realising that you have give too much of your time, beyond what you can really afford, and you unknowingly think that you are doing what is right for the guide movement.

I remembered you mentioned that your school guide movement these days are weakening in the discipline and the spirit. Most often, the quality of the movement are a product of the leadership. If the noble and capable failed to stand up to lead, the ambitious and selfish will rush to grab the leadership role for recognition and personal gains.

If the able (you) choose to play a secondary supportive role of doing the 'dirty' works (which takes up lots of time), but do not have the moral courage to stand up and lead, then you are only aiding the cause of the ambitious and selfish in achieving their goals of driving the movement to an downward spiral. The spiral into abyness, lacking in spirit and character.

Well, you may of the opinion that you have the responsibility of assisting the guide movement, no matter what, but yet you are not shaping the soul and spirit of the movement, instead, you assist its downward spiral of character as dictated by the ambitious leader.

Not only you have failed to assist the guide's spirit, you have failed yourself badly. You have not respected your today by overstretching your body time, you also have failed to treasure your tomorrow. By pushing yourself further than what your body is most efficient at, you end up much less than your true potential.

The worst part is when you mentally review what you have done, you felt used, and instead of achieving anything significant for the guiders, you will feel that it is all wasted efforts, and yet, those same ambitious selfish leaders will gain their credits and raise even further in the hierarchy of influence in their life, to further extend their damaging influence into other sphere of their control.

In fact, this is written by a father whose heartaches her child will never understand. As the child is growing up, demanding her freedom, he has to learn to let go and watch from afar. In fact, he may have to withhold his advice as it might be preceived as interferences into her life.

Choose your wins well!

In life, you win some, you lose some.

Some wins are just not worth it in the first place, and some loses are irrelevant anyway.

The wins are not forever won, neither loses are forever loss, though at times,

wins can be for forever and losses too.

What is important is to decide what wins you want in life. Work hard to keep those wins you treasure.

If you should lose some of the important things you treasure, work hard to win it back,

If you didn't get back all that you want, that's life, because you can't win it all.

We hopefully only have good 70 years. Do not be too sad or regret about it, because there are winners that you have, losses that can be won back, and other wins that are yet to be won.

Just live life to the fullest!

Written for a growing 17 daughter