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Please, help!
Hello!
First of all, I am sorry to just come here and request your help right away; I just registered because I'm in a huge dilemma, and I'd be really thankful if anyone could help me.
My name is Flávio, I'm 19 years old, I'm portuguese (sorry if I make a mistake or two in english), and I've always had a "platonic passion" for Buddhism, but never really studied/practiced it until late 2009. Needless to say, my life has since then changed completely!
So, before I started discovering Buddhism, I committed an act, in March '09, that I now realize was a selfish, stupid, materialistic, vengeful act - I stole 1000€ from my father's wallet in order to buy some items for a personal collection.
I got carried away by materialism, and I used my troubled relationship with my father as a justification for it. Because life is really ironic, I soon regretted it and I lost interest in that collection/items. Now I have items that are worth 1000€, that I completely don't care about, and I just want to get rid of them and amend my act.
So for the last couple of months I have been meditating, and I came across two solutions. Do I:
1- tell my father about it, but risk having our already troubled relationship get even worse, and he'd end up throwing the items to the garbage;
2- don't say anything to my father, try to repay him later without him knowing ("Dad, I feel like giving you 1000€!
"), and just offer all the items to other collectors (instead of selling them, which I think would be also be a selfish act? to profit from this situation just doesn't seem right to me);
I think 2 is the best option, but then I thought: isn't it a bit unfair to gain a reputation of being charitable or benevolent by giving away precious, collector items, for free? or maybe I'm thinking way too much about this?
what do I do? I hate being in this state of indecisiveness... if I could just turn back time!
Hope I explained it well, and again, thank you for your time.:o
First of all, I am sorry to just come here and request your help right away; I just registered because I'm in a huge dilemma, and I'd be really thankful if anyone could help me.
My name is Flávio, I'm 19 years old, I'm portuguese (sorry if I make a mistake or two in english), and I've always had a "platonic passion" for Buddhism, but never really studied/practiced it until late 2009. Needless to say, my life has since then changed completely!
So, before I started discovering Buddhism, I committed an act, in March '09, that I now realize was a selfish, stupid, materialistic, vengeful act - I stole 1000€ from my father's wallet in order to buy some items for a personal collection.
I got carried away by materialism, and I used my troubled relationship with my father as a justification for it. Because life is really ironic, I soon regretted it and I lost interest in that collection/items. Now I have items that are worth 1000€, that I completely don't care about, and I just want to get rid of them and amend my act.
So for the last couple of months I have been meditating, and I came across two solutions. Do I:
1- tell my father about it, but risk having our already troubled relationship get even worse, and he'd end up throwing the items to the garbage;
2- don't say anything to my father, try to repay him later without him knowing ("Dad, I feel like giving you 1000€!
"), and just offer all the items to other collectors (instead of selling them, which I think would be also be a selfish act? to profit from this situation just doesn't seem right to me);I think 2 is the best option, but then I thought: isn't it a bit unfair to gain a reputation of being charitable or benevolent by giving away precious, collector items, for free? or maybe I'm thinking way too much about this?
what do I do? I hate being in this state of indecisiveness... if I could just turn back time!
Hope I explained it well, and again, thank you for your time.:o
0
Comments
Sell the items and give him the money as soon as possible.
I recommend give him back the money, plus telling about how u get it.
Oh I forgot to say, that I can't sell them until a couple of years from now, because I can't have a credit card (in order to sell the items to collectors from other countries, because nobody in PT bought them), without having a job (I'm currently studying).
So... maybe I should wait a couple more years and follow your advice?
You mentioned that your already troubled relationship with your father might get worse if you told him that you stole from him. Would this harm your father or merely make you feel uncomfortable to be yelled at or maybe even be called names? If your father would not be harmed in a tangible way by your being honest with him, then the precept stands, I am afraid :tonguec:
The issue of what to do with the purchased items is much simpler to resolve. They are not yours, they are your fathers. Let him decide what to do with those items. If you think he might make a bad decision out of anger, then don't give him possession of the items until after he has had a chance to calm down.
Best wishes to you. And good for you facing up to the wrong you did. It reflects very positively on you.
My personal perception of this is that you're looking for an easy way out of this, and there just isn't one. If you're talking about my advice specifically, no, you should not wait a couple of years and follow my advice. You should do it as soon as possible. You play, you pay.
I don't think anyone here is going to give you permission to take the easy way out. You admit you stole. Every day that goes by is another day that you create distance between yourself and your father by perpetuating a lie.
I think it's clear that, unless more harm would be done by making this right immediately, you should make this right immediately. And I think the Buddhist way would be to make this right immediately.
If I tell him, it will definitely destroy any little remain of confidence/trust that we still have for each other. I don't want to tell him, not our of fear of getting yelled or cursed at (he already does that... a lot), but because I know it will destroy all chances of a future reconciliation or improvement in our relationship (he would never forget it and always use it against me).
So, because of that, I think I'm gonna wait a few years, sell the items and give the money to charity, and then repay him with money from whatever future job I might have. I really think that is the best solution
Thank you all for your responses! you definitely helped me solving my dilemma
Love, from PT*
Just my 2 cents worth.
Sell the items that you bought with his money, and any others it takes to get 1000€. I don't believe there is no one you can sell them to, you bought them which means other people will want them too.
Put the money back into his wallet.
If and when he asks you where the money came from, then explain what happened and apologise for it.
How would being honest destroy trust? Again, you know your father better than any of us, but generally honesty results in an increase in trust. There may be short term anger/disappointment, but honesty leads to trust.
It's your life and your father, but I encourage you to be certain within yourself that being honest at this stage would really cause harm.
He didn't notice it because he's a banker and always has several thousand euros on his wallet, and I don't think he keeps track of how much he has. At least he didn't say anything to me, if he did notice.
And I can sell the items, what I said was that I can't sell them NOW because of not having a way to receive international payments (credit card). I have already tried selling them here in PT, but no one answered my ads. Like I said earlier:
And as for this:
With him, I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. I feel horrible saying this, but my father is a proud, arrogant, greedy, controlling man. He is EXTREMELY competitive, specially with his family. I've never been close to him, and when I tried, he always did something to hurt me, until I just stopped trying. He doesn't even care if I talk to him or not (I don't talk to him since 2007). But I'm not the only one; my older brother, my sister-in-law, and even my mother also do not talk to him. And I, unfortunately, still live in his house.
And the deal is, for him, honesty is a sign of weakness. So if I were to be honest with him, and show regret, he would (literally) squash me like a bug.
That's why I'm gonna resolve this like I said in my last post.:o
I can only echo what others have said before me. It is your life and you can choose how you want to deal with the situation. Nobody here can tell you what to do, we can only offer our advice as people from varied backgrounds. As others have mentioned, I also don't understand why you are unable to part with the "items" in question; these so-called collectibles that nobody but you seems to think are worth €1000? I find that very difficult to believe, unless you're really talking about drugs and just don't want to admit it on an internet message board.
I personally think it would be better to be honest with your father instead of hiding it. You say that being honest will destroy his trust, but in my opinion it would make you look like you genuinely regretted what you did and want to change your behavior.
If my child stole from me, confessed without my prompting, and was truly remorseful for what they did, I would be much more likely to trust them in the future. Even if they couldn't pay me back right away, I would be very proud that they were able to talk to me about what they did instead of continuing to hide it. It would demonstrate that they have acknowledged their mistakes and have made an effort to improve. It shows much more character to admit you were wrong than to pretend nothing ever happened and just hope for some resolution in the far off future.
As Chrysalid said, your father must have noticed the missing money (unless you're extravagantly wealthy and €1000 is just pocket change). He may not have said anything to you, but it's possible he knows that you took it and is just not saying anything about it. The trust may already be damaged and you just don't know it yet.
Is the added step of giving the money to charity an attempt to alleviate your guilt? To be frank, I think it don't think it's a great idea to donate ill-gotten funds, since your intentions weren't altruistic to begin with. You should donate to charities because you want to help, not because you want to feel better about what you did wrong.
EDIT:
Okay, I didn't see this before I posted my reply. This whole situation sounds extremely strange.
Oh God, no!! I don't do drugs, nor do I even drink or smoke! I'm also a vegetarian, by the way.
I know this situation may seem awkward, but I swear it's true. My father always think about himself and forgets others.
And no, giving the money to charity isn't an attempt to alleviate my guilt, I always make donations to charities (me and my mother are the only persons of the family to do it). Last time I did, was to Madonna's foundation, Raising Malawi (she doubles every dollar donated by the way; go make a donation!).
As for the "items are worth 1000€" thing, I value them at that cost because that's the money I spent on purchasing them. Of course that, if I sell them, I will most likely receive less than that. Or maybe more, depends on the buyer.
The only reason I don't say what it is, it's because, honestly, I'm ashamed lol I really cannot believe I used to collect these items and even STEAL money to purchase more in order to increase my collection...
Should it make the relationship worse...well that is sort of on you to try to correct...at least this part of it.
That is my opinion anyway