What I Learned From My Father

On this Father's Day, I would like to mention just a few of the lasting things that I've learned from my Father.

Some of these things were explicitly told to me, and others I learned from the way he lives his life.

1. You can be anything you want because you're as good as anyone else; not because you're better. Be confident, but be humble.

2. One time when I was a teenager, I think he thought I was getting a bit too cocky. He said, "there's a lot of brilliant people living under the bridge." That was all he had to say. I understood that he was saying that things don't always work out the way we want, and sometimes it could go extremely bad. So keep working hard and stay humble. No long conversation was needed. One articulate statement stayed with me, and will stay with me for the rest of my life.

3. Respect and protect women. As I got older, he said to always protect and stick up for my Mother, even if it is him that is arguing with her. He always made it clear that my Mother is someone special and to always treat her, and all women, with respect.

4. Effort should always be made to be a positive member of society. That is more important than money or notoriety. My Dad was a Mechanical Engineer, who worked on projects for power plants, defense systems and designed automated machinery and systems for manufacturing. You may not know his name, but he made your life better by creating and producing for society.

5. Always strive to do what you say. Own your mistakes. Fix your mistakes. If you do not have your character, honor and integrity, then you have nothing.

6. You don't have to love the politicians. You don't have to agree with how some citizens look so negatively upon our country, or how they act without integrity. However, you should love your country and appreciate the people who have made it what it is, through sacrifice.

7. My Father would come home from work each day, and immediately go upstairs to change out of his clothes that he wore at work. He would then go outside to do work in and around the house. He did woodworking. He fixed things. He kept busy. He did this every day. He was always doing something. I was in awe of his work ethic.

One day, in my teenage years, I was watching TV in the afternoon after school. That day, he was walking up the step to change his clothes immediately after coming home, and I asked him, "how are you able to work around the house immediately after working at work all day?"

He said very plainly, "I just do it."

I was a bit upset with him at the time because I guess I was looking for some life hack or some heart-to-heart talk.

But as the years have gone by, I often think back to that interaction with him, and I realized that he knew that he could not explain work ethic.

We each have to learn our work ethic, and come to it in our own way, for our own reasons.

I think he knew that he couldn't teach me about work ethic with one simple answer. Instead, he showed me it with his entire life of examples.

Once I realized this, I was no longer upset with his short, quick answer that day.

8. Parents, put the time in to help your children, no matter what it takes. I was having a lot of trouble with my Algebra in high school. I just wasn't getting it. One night, he and I worked on it in my room for something like six hours. We went from chapter one in the book, to the current chapter that we were in the class at that time.

It changed my life overnight. And I attribute that night as the start of my love of math and science (and eventually computer science career).

He recognized that I wasn't performing to my capabilities. He put the effort in to help me... no matter what.

And some advice for Fathers and future Fathers:

My Father raised me to be a good person. He did not push me to choose a particular career. He didn't care what I was going to do for a living.

I became a good person going into adulthood because of him and my Mother.

Then, in my 20's and 30's, I really found my own voice and figured out what I wanted to do. I found it on my own. That's what they wanted.

That takes a bit more time, compared to if a parent pushes a child to be something from a very young age.

However, I had a strong foundation by being a good person, and being able to build upon that foundation however I wanted.

My life is like a house. My parents built the strong foundation and I built the house.

I ask that you do the same for your children.

#fatherhood #FatherAndSon #FathersDay