Rob Cheng's Blog
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25Nov-22
Technology is robbing my children of their childhood

I am a work at home dad, and I love my kids. Sometimes, like now, my heart is broken because my kids are addicted to technology and video games.

Relative to the other kids, Teddy and Jesse are great, but relative to their potential, technology is robbing them of the best times of their life. Both of them have their talents (Teddy golf and Jesse piano), but they are unable to explore these talents because rather than practicing, challenging themselves, and growing, their free time is wasted mindlessly watching videos or video games. They lose hours. Sure, as a parent, I try to be vigilant and stern, but it is exhausting and a losing battle.

My children now 15 and 13 years old lack many social skills of children of prior generations. Rather than interact with other kids, and learning to “get along”, they run home and myopically staring at a seven inch screen.

Perhaps the most worrisome is the skill of observation. They believe that the world is to be experienced through a 2 dimensional screen that tickles two senses (see and hear) and ignores the other three senses (touch, taste and smell). Real world is a beautifully complex ecosystem, and yet their experience is limited to what their devices can deliver.

At times, it is overwhelming, but then I realize it is not the children that are lost in this artficial fake technology bubble, it is the adults. God help us.
12Feb-21
Get Out of Neutral

For one year, the world has been stuck in neutral. People are waiting for an invisible hand to move the gear shift back to DRIVE. The masses flock to Netflix and Facebook hoping that somehow the world will become unstuck. Life is short and I don’t want to waste a day and certainly not a year being stuck. We are the invisible hand and our actions define whether the gear shift will move the vehicle forward. I refuse to live my life in neutral.
9Mar-18
Myrtle Beach 1/2 Marathon 2018




It was a very windy day for this race. At times, I felt I was running and not moving. I am proud to say that I finished in my personal record time on my 8th 1/2 marathon. 2:20.
21Dec-17
One Meal a Day

I finished my 6th 1/2 marathon in March 2017. The day after I finished, I was achy and contemplative. I asked myself, “Why do I eat three meals a day?” I came to the conclusion that there are two reasons. First, everyone else does. It is ingrained into human culture throughout the entire world. The words (breakfast, lunch, dinner) translate perfectly into every language that I have studied. And then second, I realized that as a boy, we learned it in school because the government mandated it. We all remember the food groups and three square meals, etc. Warning bells are going off. Why is the government so concerned about how often I eat?

Then I decided that I would eat one meal a day. I had no idea what to expect. Simply put, it has been amazing experience, and I doubt that I will return to typical human eating patterns. Here are some of the benefits of eating once a day.

Energy.

Sometimes, but not all, I would feel lethargic after eating lunch. I now never feel that way. In fact, I have more energy now than any time that I can remember in my life.

Time.

With the extra energy, I have more time to get more done each day. I am more productive at work, and I have more time for exercise.

Sleep.

I sleep better than any time in memory perhaps because I have less food to process. Or maybe because I have more time to burn calories.

Food.

I love the benefits but the most important one is that food has never tasted so good. I look forward to each time I eat, and I relish each bit. It does not matter. It always tastes great. Sometimes, not so often, I feel hungry, and I just think, “It will taste even better, when I sit down.”

Weight Loss.

It was not my plan but I have lost some weight. The day after I ran the 1/2 marathon, I weighed 165 pounds, and I have dropped to roughly 150 pounds, maybe a little less. I honestly feel no desire to put back on the weight. I feel like I am running faster and I feel healthier without the extra weight.

It has been 9 months since I started this regimen and I feel it is sustainable. The only downside is people sometimes look at me strange when I choose not to eat with them.
17Mar-17
Myrtle Beach 1/2 Marathon



There was a nasty virus going around and I was feeling under the weather. But somehow I managed to finish the Myrtle Beach 1/2 Marathon.