Tag: Lessons Learned

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Youth is Wasted on the Young

Some facts about dear old dad

  • He came from Mexico the legitimate way
  • Found work
  • Raised a family
  • Became an entrepreneur
  • Has worked for himself for over 20 years
  • Paid off his home in 5 years
  • Currently in 0% personal debt

One of my many stories

When I was younger my dad would circle the property around his business every chance he had. If we went to the movies, the grocery store, to visit family or friends; he’d always find away to reroute our way home just to get a glimpse of his business. He did this a lot, to say the least.

When I was 6, I asked him; why are we always coming back here. You do this all the time and it takes forever to go home. He looked at me proud; as though he was glad I asked the question, but not fully prepared to benefit from the answer.

‘This is my business and if I don’t look after it, no one will.”

This message along with the many others helped shape my perception of this world.  At the age of 6, responsibilities were but a mere blip on my radar.  My father made sure to remedy this.

Everyone in this world is born into a debt of responsibility.  The sooner I learned this lesson the sooner life got a lot easier.  I love listening to my father and those that came before me.  [Don’t tell him I said that].

Somewhere between elementary and the graduating of college my father lectured me on his experiences with finances, relationships, time , and dreams.  My father makes bold statements about what I should do with my life.

Ironically it was not the bold statements that taught me anything.  It’s the stories he tells about his experiences.  The memories that he illustrates with such detail.  It’s easy to take  scenarios  that he builds so well and deduce my own lesson.

It’s  unfortunate  that many lessons are learned without the time to apply them.

My father has given me the ability to start from where he currently is in his life.  He’s given me time, which until now I thought was impossible to give.

When I was younger my father got me to do things by teaching me.  22 years later he’s still getting me to do things by inspiring me.

“Youth is wasted on the young” — George Bernard Shaw

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Don’t Knock It Until You’ve Tried It

Sadly a lot of people will say they don’t like something even though they’ve never tried it.

People will say “I don’t like that…” whether it’s a sport, traveling, a new beer, or even a whole country of people they’ve never met. I can honestly say that I used to be this way too. I have found that by being close minded to new and possibly better things, you miss out on a whole lot of awesome.

Growing up, I used to eat my steaks Well Done because that is how my parents would order them and really, I didn’t know any better. If in early high school and you were to present me with a steak that was Medium or God forbid, Medium-Rare I would of rejected it. It wasn’t until I was in a situation where I had to be polite when offered a Medium-Rare steak that I found what I had been missing for so long. I then took the mindset of “Don’t Knock It Until You’ve Tried It” and applied that to food in general. I have come to find and love many more culinary delights since then and I can trace my culinary “open-mindedness” back to that one experience. Heck, if it turns out that you don’t like something… you never have to eat it again.

Medium Rare Steak
Photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thaddeus_griffin/

This same concept can be applied to your views on people that are different from you. Whether it’s  their  religion, ethnicity, sexual preference, financial bracket, political preference or whatever else one can  conjure  up to divide us. If you don’t know someone who is White, Brown, Black, Green, Purple, Straight, Gay, Muslim, Christian, Canadian, American, Protestant, Catholic or whatever else, then it doesn’t seem fair to come to a conclusion when in fact you don’t know.

Don’t be afraid of the “Medium-Rare” because you might just like it.