If there is somebody in this world who loves you with their whole soul, that is fine — but know that you have an enormous responsibility on your shoulders.
A note on intent: this is not a piece for parents. It is a piece for children. Perhaps not for the small ones, but the thirteen, twenty-four and thirty-three-year-olds are invited to read it. I do not need to drag their parents here. They will certainly read it anyway.
So — when somebody loves you with their whole soul, it is unavoidable that you carry a heavy bag of responsibility.
Listen, children. The love of a mother and father for their offspring is an overwhelming business. An overdose of feeling straight into the vein, arriving suddenly.
Nobody really prepares you for it, and it gets worse with time, the more attached you become to the small creature. With every minute you spend looking at them.
Mothers and fathers are creatures who have, to a large extent, lost complete control over their own emotions. Their happiness and their suffering depend, to an almost hysterical degree, on small people who are not always within radar range.
And from that comes the responsibility. Everything you do has an effect.
Answered rudely? You wounded.
Ignored? You hurt.
Did not let them know? You worried them.
Embraced? You calmed.
Do not be too pleased with that position of power, dear children. The dark secret is that it is only an evolutionary preparation for your own future relationships.
Because at some point in the future, the hope is that you will care about somebody totally, and love them so much that if they are sad you will find no gladness in yourself.
And that is the good outcome. If you choose a life full of casual connections, you will fall prey to the monster of loneliness, next to which every other difficulty will look like a picnic.
So this morning, and every morning after it, try to be genuinely decent to the people who made you.
Remember — their heart is in your hands.