Saturday, May 14, 2016

What's the best gift to give to our kids?

I keep thinking, what is the best gift, that we the parents, can give to our kids?

Should we give them money? Money doesn't last. Once they run out of money, they don't know how to survive.

Should we give them a skill? Sure, with a skill they have a mean to make a living and stand on their own feet. But merely a skill would just make them a menial worker. They only know using the skill given to them to solve problems that are defined by others. If the world changes, their skills may not be able to keep up. Unfortunately, this is where most of the parents stop, thinking that they have already provided the best possible gifts to their children, a specialty skill.

Should we then give them some problems to solve, so that they can come up with their own skillsets as they see fit? That's a good start. Present them with an objective gives them freedom to invent their own tools. Most of the world-changing innovation starts from solving problems that matter to our humanity. Creativity is not stifled when we don't confine the tool kit that our kids can use. But who's gonna come up with the problems? Why some problems are important and others aren't as much? Without knowing what problems matter in the first place, the smartest inventors are still merely a complex problem solving machine, not a problem discoverer.

So, in addition to skills, freedom and motivation to invent their own skills, the most desirable thing to give to our kids, are the ability to identify problems that bother the world. It is the vision of knowing what the world needs the most that cultivates great leaders; it is the minds that proactively think about what the society is direly missing that drive the most profound innovations. The modern age needs problem solvers, but it craves for problem discoverers, even more badly.

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