Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Mong Tuong and I am the story teller of Phuc Khang Corporation – the Green Building Developer. You are listening to the program “1001 green things”. Phuc Khang expects what is happening in our world to be told in “1001 green things” in order to “touch” and to “wake up” the love in the audiences. Then, the concept about the green and sustainable lifestyle will surely be spread and educated.

Today, I will tell you the story named “A LETTER TO MY DEAR SON”

DEAR SON, ARE YOU AN POSSESSOR OR A POSSESSEE?

Days ago, I took a visit to my son who is working in Saigon. As usual, my son regularly visits the hometown, but recent months, the pandemic has paused his coming back; that’s why my husband and I decided to pay him a visit. My son is an office staff, quite stable a job. Having been saving for a while, he could buy an apartment in installments.

His house is conveniently-arranged. Besides the television, refrigerator, air-conditioner, he equipped his home with a washing machine, dish-washer, robot janitor … My son is too busy to do household chores, so he tried his best to equip the apartment with facilities for better convenience. Life is for enjoyment and earning money is to comfort our lives as much as possible.

After meals, all dishes are put into the dish-washer, dirty clothes are washed in the washing machine, dirty floors are cleaned by the robot janitor … Many times, my son has suggested buying this modern equipment for our home in the hometown but we refused owing to unnecessity. There had been nothing to mention about until I learned that my son was too much dependent on this modern equipment along with the habit to waste more and more energy.

On holidays, he doesn’t like to exercise or go for a walk in the park but “hides” himself at home, watching TV, playing computer games, surfing the phone … Idly, he pays little care to the ornament plants along the balcony … The natural light is unable to stream in through the curtain while the electric lights are on. He enters the bedroom, leaving the TV on without any viewers. He has meals in the kitchen, leaving the air-conditioner on in the bedroom. He goes to the convenience store, forgetting turning the tap off. In the morning, he rushes to work, leaving the lamps on in the bedroom. When being reminded by the parents, he replies with optimism: “Take it easy mom, a month-end surcharge of electricity causes no worries.”

You’re right, son, overpaying utility bills cannot stop you from wasting a little electricity and water as long as you are financially strong.

But son, you are looking at the floating part of an iceberg. Do you really know:

That electricity sometimes goes priceless in urgent cases such as: emergency in hospitals, lighting in classrooms in remote areas, mask production factories, vaccine?

That electricity is beyond knowledge, let alone wasting in the furthest and darkest lands?

That water, in areas with salt marsh, becomes too deficient to drink, let alone bathing or wasting?

That there are gardens, rice fields which earn living for many families dying in droughts due to lack of water?

It is not only that, son

Today, you are living wastefully like a “possessor” but do you ever bear in mind the future when energy resources are exhausted or even worse, extinct? Do you really want to witness that your children must hang onto each and every amount of electricity and water to survive in this world?

Today, you waste a little electricity and water and the surcharge of the bills doesn’t matter much. You have the right to work hard in order to have financial strength to equip your life with convenience. You have the right to own your life, taking advantages of all resources around you to live the most comfortably. You have the right to live like a King without knowing your surrounding space or the future time.

But if one day, there is no more clean water to use, do you feel worried? If one day, your apartment is blacked out, do you get nervous? If one day, all of your modern equipment “go on strike”, do you become overwrought? Living comfortably is necessary but living dependently is scary, my son.

Are you a “possessor” of this modern equipment or its “possessee” who is hypnotized or poisoned with the bad habit of wasting?

You were once taught by your dad to possess your life. It means that it is you yourself who decide your future, your life and your happiness. Whatever your ambition and hobby is, give it your best shot, try to study and work to better your life, earn more chances to care for people around you.

Yet, it is not synonymous with your bone laziness, making up reasons to buy as many modern equipment as possible, allowing yourself to be a possessor whose life is fully served and controlled. It is also not synonymous with the fact that your personal convenience allows you to waste energy resources that are given by Mother Nature. It is never synonymous with the fact that you allow yourself to live irresponsibly for the next generation.

Dear my beloved son, we always wish you a happy and comfortable life. However, we don’t encourage you to live, being dependent, lazy, selfish and wasteful, especially wasting energy resources which are not created by you. Those energy resources are given by Nature and are preserved by the whole world for long-term usage.

Hope that you are concerned.

This is the end of our story. We hope that “The letter to my dear son” will provide you with useful information for your own life.