Stop being sad, it's Tet (Vietnamese New Year)!

(Dan Tri Newspaper) - A gloomy economic year. That's what we've been hearing all these days. But Tet is coming, let's not be sad anymore, okay?

In 2010, my wife was the director of a real estate agency. She took office right when the real estate market hit rock bottom. We thought that would be the most difficult year for real estate in particular and for our family in general. That year, we bought our first house with a bank loan at an interest rate of up to 17.4%. My wife and I worked hard to support our family of five, take care of both sets of parents, and pay the bank loan interest. But we overcame everything. Looking back on those years makes us cherish our marriage even more. But this year, 2023, the real estate market is even more difficult than 2010. My wife no longer works in real estate, but my family business is still dependent on it. While before, our business produced dozens of curtain sets a day, recently the number of new apartments handed over has dropped drastically. Sometimes we only make ten sets of curtains a week, and most of them are from friends who want new curtains. Many curtain fabric suppliers have also expanded into retail, offering curtain making services. Many real estate-related businesses are also struggling, facing the risk of layoffs and shift work. There were nights when, at 2 a.m., I'd reach over to my side and not find my wife there. I'd go to the living room and find her sitting there reading a book by the lamp.

The cheerful smile of a flower vendor at Quang Truong flower market in Dong Nai province on a spring day (Photo: Tran Huu Cuong).

2023 was a truly difficult economic year for many small businesses, like my family's. It was even harder during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some real estate companies with hundreds of employees only managed 1.5 transactions a month (because one transaction involved a duplicate client, resulting in only 50% of the transaction fee being received). Some of my friends proudly showed off their Lunar New Year bonuses in the form of products from the company they were managing. Their boss told them to sell them without paying the company, considering it their Lunar New Year bonus. My friend was still lucky because others were owed salaries, let alone receiving a bonus. The difficulties cast a gloomy atmosphere over everyone's families. One of my older brothers just finalized his divorce from his wife after 20 years of marriage. There were many reasons, including some that happened 20 years ago and his wife still brings up now. But I realized something, a very sad reason: His wife had just lost her job at the age of 45. The company went bankrupt. At 45, for a woman who isn't exceptionally capable, finding a new job is incredibly difficult. Quitting her job and being a full-time wife, especially with their children grown and living their own lives, left her idle and depressed. Meanwhile, he was working tirelessly to earn money to compensate for his wife's lost income, keeping him incredibly busy. The couple gradually drifted apart without realizing it. Being home all day, his wife became more critical, leading to constant arguments. When she couldn't take it anymore, she suggested a separation. He was shocked. Twenty years of what seemed like a stable marriage turned into a year of unemployment, and facing each other all day revealed countless incompatibilities. Difficulties can be a catalyst for love, but they can also shatter a marriage. It's still about how we face these challenges and turn adversity into opportunity or danger into harm. I told my brother, "What makes your wife want to give up isn't the financial difficulties, but the sense of belonging." Like my wife, she doesn't want to lay off any employees in our family business because they've been with us for a full ten years. Some people say they want to work for us until they're no longer able to. So, it's easy to say "give up," but it's hard to let go of one's conscience. That's why at 2 AM my wife is still reading, not to find solutions, but simply to find peace of mind. So instead of sleeping soundly while she sleeps, I make a pot of tea, and we read together. There's so much written about overcoming difficulties. I could quote or even recommend many books to everyone. But whether we overcome them or not ultimately depends on our hearts. Like my brother's wife, who chose to cut short her marriage to overcome the difficulties of unemployment and depression. Like my wife, who chose to keep her employees to weather the storm together. With the real estate market frozen and not many new homes being handed over, she created new jobs for her former employees. With a team of professional curtain makers and installers with 10 years of experience, my wife transformed her laundry business into number one by offering curtain cleaning and repair services, utilizing her professional curtain-making team to repair curtains for customers. Perhaps no other laundry business has professional curtain makers, installers, and laundry services like ours. Nearly 60 employees all have work instead of waiting for the real estate market to recover. Although there are still many difficulties, having a destination means there's no shortage of paths. We don't know how many more changes 2024 will bring, but aren't every change a way to help us grow? Learning to adapt in a volatile society is what the Covid-19 pandemic taught us, what the age of AI has taught us. Artificial intelligence is getting smarter, but emotional intelligence still governs this world . And challenges are precisely the exercises that help us develop our emotional intelligence. This Tet holiday, bonuses may be smaller, and the economy may have to be tightened, but let's not let go of each other's hands. My wife said: "This Tet, I'll give my employees a day's worth of wages as a gift, but no one needs to come to work. I want them to spend time with their families, their support system, and the 'powerful' battery charger for our employees." And I see the sparkle in my wife's eyes, making her incredibly adorable.

Dantri.com.vn

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