New Life Lessons

Many of the lessons my father taught me as a child are still with me today. “You need to be able to take care of yourself as no one else will” and “it is not what you say, it is how you say it,” are two of the lessons I learned growing up – sometimes the hard way. But I think the most important life lesson my father ever taught me was this:

"Don’t get stuck working a job you hate your whole life because it is the most money you can make with the job skills you have."

That is what happened to my dad. He worked a job for most of his life that he hated, because he had to. I will admit that this is a lesson that I did not understand well as a teenager. I think it took some hard times with my own career before I truly understood it. It is about marketable skills and finding a job you love – or at least like. I am fortunate that I found a career that I like. I wouldn’t say love, but I can’t make a living at what I love, which is why we all have hobbies. If you can’t work at something you love, play at something you love.

This is also a lesson I also tried to instill in Nick as he grew up, although I phrased it a bit differently. “Life is about options…you always need to give yourself options…if you woke up one day and decided that you wanted to be an astronaut, wouldn’t it be nice to have the option to try.” I think Nick understood the intent of this lesson much sooner than I did in life. He is definitely working hard at something he loves. I admire him for chasing his dream, but I would still like to see him hedge his bet a little bit and give himself some other options.

I spoke with my dad yesterday and I am amazed that he is still teaching me life lessons. You see, my dad finally retired from that crappy job this year and when I asked him how his retirement was going, his response was this:

"Retirement isn’t for the young, that is for sure. The hardest part is getting up and having to figure out what you are going to do that day."

Read between the lines and you find some words of wisdom here. My dad has worked hard his whole life. He has supported his family, much longer than any parent should have to, and now that he is retired, he does not know what to do with himself. His whole life has been about work and his family. His days were only filled with work and home life. The problem with retirement is one of those has been taken from him. I always marveled at the old timers my dad worked with that are ten or twenty years older than him, guys that could have retired years ago and chose to continue to work. And why? “Why retire, so I can sit at home and do nothing, at least when I am working, I get to come here and play cards with my friends.” I always hoped my dad wouldn’t be one of those guys and end up working into his seventies. Well my dad did retire this year, but in one of life’s ironies, he also found out that he is very sick. I don’t think this is a sudden illness, as I am sure he has been sick for a long time, he was just better at coping with it that most would have been. As he told me when he was diagnosed, “I have felt this way for years, I just didn’t know any different.”

So now that he and my mother have both reached an age where they shouldn’t be worried about anything except enjoying their days together, visiting with grandchildren or seeing the world, they are at home, visiting doctors and waking up asking, "What should we do today?"

New life lessons from my dad.

1. Take care of you body, you will want to use it for a long time.
2. Don’t let your job be your life. Let your life be your job.
3. Have some fun today, because you never know what will happen tomorrow.

I am really glad that my dad is still teaching me lessons at my age, I just wish they weren’t always at his expense. Happy Father’s Day, dad.