Parents, though almost always under appreciated, have taught all of us important lessons in our lives, whether it was through their actions, both good and bad, or their words, also both the good and the bad. If you look hard enough, you can always put a positive spin on anything in life. My parents have taught me many lessons by being a good example, and by being a poor example, showing me situations that I would not want to subject myself to. There are three things that I have picked up from my parents that I would consider to be the most important lessons that they have taught me; One from my mother, One from my father, and the last I have learned from both of them through their past actions and their present actions.
The first thing that I learned from my mother and from her father is that no matter what happens in life, always smile, and always find the good in things. To my mother, nothing else matters except that she is happy, and that the people she cares about are happy. I believe that sometimes my mom will put other people’s happiness above hers and that she goes out of her way to make people happy, even if it means that she will not be as happy as she could have been. When I was discussing college, and which ones I would want to go to, and the possible careers that I had in mind, my step dad was baffled when I told him that I did not care about a high-paying job. He does not understand the outlook on life that my grandfather, my mother and I all share that is that no matter what happens in life, we always smile.
Smiling is the key ingredient to a happy life. One smile can go a long way. Studies have shown that if a person is in a bad mood and they see a person smiling at something, their mood lightens up and they will wear a smile upon their face as well. This tendency of humans to repeat a smile that we see creates a chain effect where a simple smile from one person can brighten several people’s lives any given day.
Not only does the act of smiling brighten another person's day, I have also found out that it can brighten your own day. When something does not go the way I had planned it to, or if I am ever down, I always think of what my grandpa told me one day, “No matter how bad life gets, always find the good in it and smile because life is too short to waste it with a frown on your face.” I could tell that he had told this to my mother when she was a child, and that she had passed that lesson down to my siblings and myself. On my last day of Newspaper during my senior year of high school, our adviser made us give a speech about the past year, and I brought up that quote and by the end of my speech, had a few people crying and the entire class raising their hands to respond to my speech. I knew then that it was a powerful lesson, and that I should hold it close to my heart and never let life get me down, and to always shoot for happiness even if it means having a harder life.
Though my father was not around for the better half of my earlier years, he still has taught me a very important lesson that had I never learned it, I would hardly be the man that I am today. What I am talking about is the fact that when it boils right down to it, all you really have left is your morals and religion.
My dad is not the kind of man that you find at church or listening to the latest Christian rock CD, but he is my source of religious inspiration. I have spent countless hours in the car driving from and to father’s house with him talking about nothing but religion and morals. One of our favorite pieces of discussion is the Apostle John’s Revelation on the island of Patmos where Christ came to him and showed him the events of the end of the world. It’s no hidden fact that these times are nigh, and we talk about the importance of religion when those times come. My father will sometimes even say jokingly, “You know, I almost feel like packing up and living out in the woods by myself and God just to get out of all of this corruption.” He will then continue and explain that thought by saying that he does not want to be in the epicenter when Christ comes back and that he does not want to be hunted down for his belief in Christ as our redeemer.
This is the lesson that I have picked up from him; because I believe in the true God, I will be hated my many, and loved by few. I will be ridiculed and tormented for my faith, and all for what? Nothing in this life of course, but is not 80 years of suffering worth it for an eternity with my creator in heaven.
The final lesson that I have learned from both of my parents is to have a good marriage. When I was about 5 years old, my parents got a divorce, and they both remarried a few years afterward. During their first marriage to each other, all that they ever did was fight, and even now in their new marriages, they still fight with their new spouse.
My mother has always told me that I have to find a woman that I can’t stand to be without, and that I can’t stay mad at when we do fight. Her and my step dad fight every other day, usually about things that do not matter in the grand scheme of things, but that are picked out and brought up just out of annoyance with one another. I hear them fight, and I am smart enough to figure out the underlying properties of the fights and I simply take it all in and learn from their fights.
About a year ago, I was in a really bad relationship with a girl, and my mother had told me to make a list of every attribute or skill or quality that I wanted in a spouse, and when I had compiled the list, my current girlfriend had none of the specifications on the list. I was told to be as picky as I wanted to be because I can only get married once, in theory. The first two items were religion and morals and I have not found many girls that I am attracted to and that share those same values as I do except for two. It is safe to say that I broke up with her a few weeks after I had finished the list and found out that she was in fact the complete opposite of that list. I have only dated one girl since then simply because nobody fits my standards anymore except for those two that I mentioned earlier. I have very bad communication problems with one of them, and the other one lives in Florida. God will guide me through this I am sure, and I will trust his judgment. This was a lesson well taught, and a lesson well worth the pain to learn personally.
All of three of these lessons fit together into one another, though it may not seem so at first. If you combine any of the two then you end up with the third as the result. If you are happy and have a strong relationship with God, then you will find a good spouse. If you are happy and have a good spouse, you only have God to thank for it. If you have a strong faith and a good spouse, then God has given you a happy life. I may not thank my parents all too often for teaching me so many important lessons, but I’m sure that if they ever read this they would know how much they really mean to me, even though I may not show it at times. Thank you, mom and dad and thank you God for good parents.
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