WHAT I LEARNED FROM MY FATHER

6 life lessons that are useful

My mother and even my fashion mothers I have honored and praised here on Amayzine, but there is one more person I quote at least once a day when it comes to wise advice and life lessons. My father. I share them with you because you might find them very helpful.

Don't ask what people say, but why they say something

I think this is immediately his most wise advice. So often you only understand someone when something is put into perspective. Words are just words, try to think about how that person feels and how they see you. Then you will see that something that sounded very unkind may actually be meant very lovingly.

You learn the most from unpleasant situations

When I used to have heartbreak, I always thought; “At least I’ll get nice and thin from it.” (nothing lightly anorexic is strange to me). But when a colleague suddenly performs much worse than usual/the neighbor's contractor unsolicited seals my drainage from my shed/my sister-in-law and I can hardly find each other or I hear that my daughter is not enjoying herself at school at all, then I comfort myself with the thought that I will solve this problem one way or another and that it will help me in the future. An unpleasant situation will shape and arm me against a similar situation in the future. Although you will see that another problem will then arise...

Make sure you are always at the office earlier than your boss

At least fifteen minutes. It shows that you are eager and reliable, which means he will give you opportunities sooner than that colleague who sleeps in.

Sometimes you can be tough

Here I must note that my father is a sailor and you have to set clear rules with twenty men on a ship, otherwise it becomes one big monkey cage. I once sailed along when the third mate was going to steer the ship with a bottle of beer in his hand. That is of course the biggest mistake you can make. You have the responsibility for twenty people, a cargo, and a ship worth fifteen million. How dare you steer with beer? My father was, to put it mildly, clear. “If you wipe your ass with my orders, I wipe my ass with your contract.” It almost felt like a scene from a movie, I thought my father was so cool. And it was all just very clear again.

Make every moment a celebration

My father was maybe home for only six months of the year, but when he was there, it was a celebration. Then I would already get a croissant from Danerolles on my plate on Monday, he would stick a little flag on my sandwich, take me to school while singing self-invented songs, or take us to a restaurant for a surprise menu. Now my father looks after our children and I see him coloring a coloring page with my middle daughter in the morning, lighting a candle for each child, and drawing a happy face on their juice boxes.

Being present in absence

During the important moments in our lives, my father was almost always at sea. My mother gave birth alone twice and my father, as far as I know, was not at one funeral of my grandparents. He honored them at sea, lit a candle, and said the Our Father.

Recently, Annie, the wife of the man who called my father his ‘sea dad’, passed away, and who always took care of my father during his young sailing years. My parents had just been away for a weekend and missed the mourning card. Fortunately, my father had coincidentally sent this Annie a bouquet that day. They placed it on the coffin. This way he is always there, even without being physically present.

I will conclude with a quote from my brother. My father told him with pain in his heart that he could not be at his birthday that year. My brother (he must have been about eight) shrugged and said: “You were there last year on my birthday, right?”