Enough About Me: Choosing to Fight
Eleven years ago, I moved to New York to work at MSNBC to cover political news. I live close enough to 30 Rockefeller Plaza that I can walk to work. Four years passed in New York, and my career had been moving along. Then, life off camera came at me with an uppercut.
My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and his condition was worsening. I had begun to travel more frequently from New York to my parents’ home in California, but I was struggling to keep up with my job while also giving him—and my mother—the support they needed. How would I keep my job and also fulfill my responsibilities as a son? My dad’s condition was horrible for him. It was challenging and taxing for my mother. It was awful for my siblings. For me, it felt like a compounded loss—I was losing my dad and potentially giving up a career he had supported me in for years.
As I weighed the pros and cons of leaving my career to care for my dad, I remembered a hard-learned lesson from long ago: what happens off-camera is more important than what happens on camera. It’s one of those principles that sounds good, but at the time, it felt about as meaningful as the sentiment on a dollar bin greeting card.
Faced with the decision to aid my dad in his slow-moving, life-and-death battle, I had to ask myself, did I believe all this? Would I deny myself, put aside ambition, and sacrifice my plans for someone who may or may not even know I was doing so? I had two options: stay on my path of living for myself, or become a caregiver, like 53 million other Americans. My mind and heart did not agree.
Turns out most of us believe being selfless has too high a price.
When I surveyed 1,012 Americans, 73 percent said being selfless requires making sacrifices in their lives. A similar number thought it would mean changing their lifestyle altogether.
This, despite the fact that 91 percent of us believe living selflessly can be done in small ways.
There is a perception gap—selfless acts are for people like Mother Teresa.
Turns out moving the dial isn’t always that mythical, gargantuan Mother Teresa–sized act. (Though she barely reached five feet.)
Try as accessible as every fifteen minutes. That’s how often we make a conscious choice.[i] If we choose more selflessly for just one of these decisions each day, we’ve done something. It doesn’t have to involve huge sacrifices or a lifestyle redefinition. Small and steady can change the world.
I had one of those decisions right in front of me.
***
The choice reminded me of another turning point that happened when I was nine years old. I approached my dad and reluctantly admitted that kids in my class were bullying me. They made fun of me for not looking like they did. My father told me I had two options.
“What are you going to do—get beaten up or learn to defend yourself?” he asked.
I chose to fight. My father enrolled my scrawny, four-foot-ten-inch self in martial arts classes, which felt a little on the nose. Baba, you’re suggesting I take kung fu lessons because other kids call me Kung Fu Kid? What’s next, fortune cookies in my lunch box?
There I was—training with a former monk from the famed Shaolin Temple in China, where masters have trained since the sixth century AD. I was nine years old, and like people in generations before me, I was doing splits and roundhouse kicks in the early mornings. After five years—ta da!—I was a chiseled, quarter-scale Bruce Lee. A tiny crouching tiger, an easily hidden dragon. I was ready to fight.
And now, many years later, my father needed someone to fight for him. He could no longer do it for himself. It was time for me to step up and do what he had taught me. I was as scared as that kid on the playground.
After several weeks, I took a deep breath and walked into my boss’s office to have the conversation that could end my career. There were no part-time field journalists. Nobody dabbles in hurricane reporting. It’s a twenty-five-hours-a-day, eight-days-a-week job. I could be leaving it all behind.
“My father is not well.” It pained me to say it. “I think I may need to spend more time flying from New York to California to help care for him.” My boss, Yvette Miley, sat up in her chair and looked me in the eye the way a news editor does, listening for facts. Not many broadcast journalists ask for less screen time, less money.
“I feel you. I also take care of my mom in Florida,” Yvette said. “Let’s come up with some ideas.” She pulled out her reporter’s notebook and jotted down ideas based on what she was living through. Wow!
Yvette worked with me on this plan for months. She didn’t have to. It would not make her job easier—in fact, probably the opposite. Plenty of talented broadcast journalists could fill my spot. But what I had expected to be difficult turned out to be about creative kindness.
When I first started at 30 Rock, I worked thirty days straight with no days off. I loved it. After this talk with my boss, I was no longer working on a daily show or going on location to places where breaking news was taking place around the country and the world. My speaking schedule was cut dramatically. My annual earnings were slashed. I thought I was trading a life I had invested years to develop, giving it up for my dad—for whatever time he had left. I was torn by this new, ironic work-life balance. The longer I was successful in fighting for my father to live, the longer my career would be slowed. What I didn’t realize was that my life would also change in ways I couldn’t have previously imagined.
I am no saint. That’s Mother Teresa, who tended to the dying on the streets of Calcutta. Or Desmond Tutu, who strove for equality for all. I’m just a drop in a pail, a guy who was presented with a challenge and decided to figure out how to help his dad by slowly understanding what he had been saying all along: Being ordinary can be extraordinary. Live off camera. Is this old-fashioned principle still relevant today? I wasn’t sure. As I walked out of my boss’s office, so began the fight for the man who had taught me how to fight.
Taken from Enough About Me by Richard Lui. Copyright © 2021 by Richard Lui. Used by permission of Zondervan.
is a veteran journalist with more than 30 years in television, film, technology, and business. Currently at MSNBC and previously with CNN Worldwide, he is the first Asian American man to anchor a daily national cable news program, and a team Emmy and Peabody winner. In addition to journalism, Richard’s 15-year business career involves a fintech patent and launching six tech brands over three business cycles. He has lived, worked, and volunteered on every continent. Richard is a Celebrity Champion for the Alzheimer’s Association, Caregiving Champion for AARP and Caregiving Ambassador for BrightFocus Foundation. His first book, Enough About Me: The Unexpected Power of Selflessness, is available now wherever books are sold. Connect with Richard Lui on his website, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
Photograph © Suhash Villuri, used with permission
