Along the course of one’s life they will experience a multitude of different people. Some of the individuals will have a nasty and negative affect while others will have a productive and positive influence. There lies a third personality that will knock you down into a sea of negativity only then to throw you a life preserver. I am not a person who grew up with bullies for me that third personality which influenced me to become the core of who I am through both negativity as well as positivity during my grade school years would be my father Stephen Lawrence. My father was my hero and at the same time my tormenter as I grew up.
The most positive characteristic of my father’s that helped me become the man that I have would be that he was well educated he graduated high school, college, got his masters in English, and went on to teach English at Temple University. Now one must remember a person can be well educated , but that doesn’t mean they are intelligent. My father had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge that lead him to be a prolific reader averaging up to three or four books a week. My father read up on a myriad of subjects, fiction and non fiction alike, to satisfy his intellectual curiosities. My father also became extremely interested in cooking and decided to teach himself using cooking shows as well as reading cooking books. By the end of his life he was truly an accomplished chef. My father also loved to travel. He traveled everywhere from Costa Rica to France but he never wanted to be the generalized cliche American tourist. My father taught himself Spanish, French, and Italian for the purpose of being able to converse with the locals as opposed to just being able to hail a taxi or find a bathroom.
I am proud to say that this thirst for knowledge has greatly influenced my life to this very day so much so that I used to joke that I must have been a cat in all of my previous lives. My father taught me to not only question anything and everything, but to research the facts, pertaining to a subject for myself. I’m definitely a “Must see it to believe it” person. Thanks to my father, I also share his enjoyment of learning. Whatever it may be that sparked his passion for knowledge; I am the same way. The best way I can sum up my father’s and my pursuit of knowledge is thus “No one ended up on their death bed wishing they didn’t know so much.”
Unfortunately the worst personality trait of my father was his terrible and intimidating temper. My father would loudly criticize the other party and then he could/would hold a grudge for up to and including decades. My father was also fond of his own version of the cold shoulder. He started the usual way of just coldly ignoring the person he was angry with, but periodically he would walk past the person he had taken issue with and glare at them with intense contempt and unparalleled disgust. He would maintain this icy stare until he was recognized at which point after a minute or so of unholy silence he simply would walk away not saying a single word. My father could get himself so enraged that even the most honest heartfelt apology would accomplish nothing. The issue was only considered resolved when my father was satisfied with the current state of affairs. Then and only then was the argument over. With my father it was never his fault for anything. It was always someone else complicating his life with nonsense, and this served as a constant and all encompassing excuse for his tremendous temper. My father was born with the proverbial chip on his shoulder and nurtured a “The world vs. Me” attitude.
I’m sad to say that I inherited in many ways my father’s abominable anger. I can be criticizing to the point of cruelty, but unlike my father I do not indulge in the cold shoulder concept. Instead of being cold I come in hot and only get hotter as my anger feeds upon itself growing more enraged with each passing minute. Unlike my father who was above insult and profanity I am most certainly not. When angry I swear like a sailor with Tourettes and have no trouble lowering myself to the low level of hurling insults upon one’s character. I, like my father, will only be satisfied when I feel the issue has reached its end and then in my mind it is actually over. Yet through all of this my father’s ill temper has also helped me become a better person in the end. I’m fully aware that my temper greatly mimics my father’s, but once I turned thirty I realized I don’t want or need to be like my father when anger rears its combative face. I started (and still am) working on my anger issues and how I can /could learn to control them before I totally become unhinged to say the least. Now to give credit where credit is due my father attempted and succeeded greatly to control his own anger, but he didn’t start this so called transformation of character until he turned 61. Part of my realization has been, if he could change at 61 then I have the opportunity to not only change my ways, but to do it with a thirty year advantage.
Another major influence my father had on me was his fear of illness as my father was a consummate hypochondriac. My father never had just a common cold he always had cancer. Thats to say my when my father got sick he would immediately go to the worst case scenario and then act accordingly. My father convinced himself he got sicker more often, for longer periods of time, and had the most severe symptoms out of anyone he knew who may have contracted the cold thus far. My father also made a point of making it abundantly clear that he was suffering each and every time he got sick as if he expected that at any given moment he would end up an invalid on his death bed due to his current horrendous state of heath. I possess the same brand of hypochondria with a few exceptions.
Growing up with my father instilled an intense instinct to remain healthy. If my wife or coworker for example were coming down with a cold/flu I automatically go into decontamination mode. I will start to take excessive amounts of vitamins, spray down communal areas with thick clouds of Lysol disinfectant, obsessively wash my hands, and avoid the infected person as much as humanly possible. When I do contract a cold I too assume the worst and begin to compulsively monitor my symptoms for signs of improvement constantly until my previous good health is restored in full.
I think the most admirable thing about my father was his incredibly strong work ethic. When my father took on a task/job or had a specific goal he wanted to achieve nothing short of death could stop him from accomplishing task/job or completing his goal. My father never procrastinated, delayed or did anything half way, for my father it truly was all or nothing. My father gave a hundred percent while staying intently focused on the work at hand, and if the job in the end wasn’t a hundred percent then the job was a total and complete failure. My father knew failure was unavoidable and he none the less detested it.
My father’s incredible work ethic is more than likely the strongest influence my father had on me growing up. When I have a task/job or goal to accomplish I too have to give it a hundred percent or nothing. I won’t let anything get in my way either and will not stop working from the beginning to the end relentlessly. With that said the influence of my father’s work ethic has a definite up side, but it also for me has a detrimental downside as well. I have unintentionally become the most ferocious perfectionist which causes me to be extremely hard on myself. I am most critical of myself above anyone else to the point which I beat myself up over the littlest things making mountains out of mole hills as the saying goes. I at some point along the road decide that nothing so far is any good and I can convince myself the entire project is flawed thus rendering it a futile waste of time and effort.
Once again we can see life is far from being simply black and white. In fact most of life falls into an enormous grey area. While it is true there will be specifically negative influences such as bullies or bad bosses, also there will be positive ones such as siblings or significant others. Most people you encounter will have a mixed influence upon your life and character. There will be some good along with some bad. It all comes down to the following: no matter who or what the influence may be, remember you can take what you like from the situation and leave all the rest behind.
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my thoughts on everything