DISCIPLINE

By Romil Ong

When I was a young boy, age 5, I lived with my Grandmother’s house together with my elder sister. At young age I was trained to do things differently; to elaborate further, I was trained to do; household chores, farming, cooking, table manner and even slaughtering chickens, washing clothes with my bare hands, trained to determine what’s right from wrong, proper manner, right conduct and good deeds, these are as far as I remember.

We are trained differently including the animals that we had, such as dogs, cats, chicken.
I remember and I will never forget the discipline what my grandmother does; each of us including animals has its own discipline in regards to calling, feeding and etc.

Each of us had a code for calling through bell, if the bell rang, all of us will stop whatever work we had just to pay attention to the bell, even the animals, whatever they are doing, they will stop just to wait attentively to the bell ringing. Nobody and no one ignore the bell or else you’ll be in trouble and punished.

If you have a single mistake, you’ll be in trouble; you will be punished accordingly identical to mistakes you’d made.

Years and years had passed, my grandmother teaches me how to cook sweet & sour fish dishes, I admit I made a mistake while frying the fish, I took her towel to use as hand globes to a very hot frying pan due to sudden fear that the fish will be burned. I was nervous and I don’t know what to do, I didn’t even thought instead of hand globes I took her face towel and that was my big mistake and to tell the truth I was in trouble.

I had very hard and worthy punishment, she will going to put hot chili on my eyes because I am blind and not careful to things I had seen. But I run away because of too much fear I felt and that was the first rebellion I made and never came back to my grandmother’s house until and even to her death.

I am now 33 years of age and happily married, blessed with one handsome boy, for many years had passed; I’d realized the beauty and important the discipline what my grandmother put forth. She taught me how to be responsible and being responsible to the things I will manifest in the future, she taught me to be more discipline than what other person has, she taught me to accept great personal responsibility but I ignore it and that was my big Mistake. If I could rewind back the past I would prefer to stay at my grandmother’s house and continue to gain and acquire knowledge from her but it’s too late, past had passed and I don’t have recourse to reel back.

One thing I remember when feeding; dogs will not come along if they will hear the bell which is not for them and so as the cat and chicken. What a beauty of discipline I can imagine- but too late.

All I have to do now is to be more discipline, Perhaps the most important personal choice I should make is to accept complete responsibility for everything I am and everything I will ever be. This is the great turning point in my life.

-to my grandma, thank you for the discipline that you bestowed to me.