I was a winner when I was young. I exceled in every subject in school, won most of the academic competitions. At home, I was the obedient son.

It helped tremendously that I loved books and was curious, and had figured out that, a good way to impress adults, was by saying, “Do you know that…”I thought everyone should be like me. Especially my brother, who was 4 years younger than me. I took it upon myself, to teach my brother to follow my path. I did it out of love, because I wanted him to receive all the goodies and praises from adults, like I did.

But my brother wasn’t like me. He was into other things like martial arts, fashion, and pop songs. My parents were worried. So I started nagging him. Slowly every conversation turned into a heavy lecturing session. It became a one way communication – I did the lecturing, while he looked away.

Eventually, my brother stopped talking to me.

I lost him.

What went wrong? I meant only good for him.

That, is how to lose a brother.

This story has a good ending. Fortunately I have another younger brother, who is jovial and has higher EQ than me. He took the initiative to go into his brother’s world. He chatted with him about latest pop songs, his favorite stars, about how nasty some of his teachers and classmates are. Common stuff, trivial stuff, but easy to digest.

Eventually, as I matured after receiving many hard knocks in life, I started to understand how my brother must have felt with my constant lecturing.

I am glad to say that our relationship is better now. Whenever we meet now, I do not lecture him anymore. Instead we talk about everything under the sun, whatever interests him.

He is my brother. My love for him has never changed. But I am glad that I have found a better way to love.