The parrot betrayed its owner.

I used to raise a parrot. Don't think that parrots are smart because they can imitate human speech. In fact, this animal is extremely stubborn and difficult to tame. It will not recognize its owner just because you take care of it, let alone listen to you. I have a habit of feeding it a piece of sugar every afternoon when I come home from work. One time, we ran out of sugar and I forgot to buy some. That damn parrot took advantage of the moment when I changed the water in the cage to peck my hand painfully. It was truly a treacherous animal. Luckily, not long after that, this parrot escaped from the cage and flew away. Otherwise, I don't know how many more times it would have pecked me.

My friend was not so lucky. He did not raise parrots but had a destructive older brother. I heard that he had been involved in gambling since high school. He is now 30 years old, has a wife and two children but still has an old disease that is hard to get rid of. Every year, around the 25th of Tet, he comes home to tell the whole family good news. At best, it is a few hundred million, but if he is in a good mood and spends too much, he will come back with a debt of several billion to ask his parents for money to pay off the debt. The family's wealth has also long since disappeared with his prodigal son, his parents, who are retired, now have to work hard to earn money to pay off their son's debt. To the point that when their son did not come home for a while to report the debt, his parents were half-believing, half-doubting, still saving money in case of "something bad". Sure enough, that Tet holiday, not only did the old couple's savings disappear, but even the house where they, his wife and two children were living had to be mortgaged to the bank to borrow money to pay off debt.

On a gloomy winter afternoon, my friend sat with his hands on his forehead and told me in an emotionless voice that the money he had saved for so long to buy a house next year and bring his parents to live with him to relieve his boredom had to be given to his parents to pay off the debt of that useless older brother. He felt sorry for his old parents who had to shoulder the debt for him, and also felt sorry for himself for all the hard work he had done for so long that it had all gone to waste. He boldly declared to me that he would disown that bastard older brother, from now on his life or death had nothing to do with him. I clicked my tongue and said nothing. If a parrot from the past didn't leave on its own, I wouldn't have the heart to chase it away. Let alone a blood brother.

The sad thing is, the people who take advantage of our love, trample on our efforts, and make us the saddest and most miserable are often the ones closest to us. Blame them once, and sometimes think about it and blame yourself twice or three times. If we didn't indulge them when they make demands, and let them go when they go too far, they wouldn't have gotten used to relying on us and become so ungrateful. Do we often politely say thank you and apologize to outsiders but carelessly accept things from our loved ones as a matter of course? Then if one day our needs are not met, we think they are at fault.

I guessed right. My friend was frustrated and told me that after his brother disappeared and left behind a debt of several billion for his family, he had the nerve to text him to borrow money and added the sentence "When are you coming back? Come over to my house when you have time". At this point, my friend spat in disgust and exclaimed "Who invited you?" But I think that if one day that guy really showed up, my friend would hardly be able to open his mouth to say the words "letting the dog chase away the guest".

After all, it is still blood and kinship, born entangled, not able to choose but also hard to let go. Thinking back, I feel very lucky, at most I just raised the wrong parrot.