Learnings - How my father Inspired me and shaped my Life

Let me tell you a story.
 

My father is a man who a lot of us in the family look up to, It's not just me.

There was this time, when he was switching jobs every three months (he worked in the HVAC industry) and it was a very difficult phase for all of us. He was a very righteous and an honest man. Even then, fights would happen out of the blue, fits of anger would come in now and then and this was when my younger sibling was growing up and couldn't really catch up with the harsh realities as much as I and mom did. Due to this, we both had a very basic schooling, I went to a Government college and did not take private tuition.

Then at the point when he hit 40, a realization hit him. He has been doing the wrong thing all this while and that he and his abilities were really not meant for a day job. 40 is an age where a lot of people are on the peak of their careers and would be looking forward to settle down in a few years time.

But that's where my Dad is awesome. He started his own business at 40 in a 200 sq foot office space at a derelict commercial building. Like just another management trainee would do, he made all the cold calls, sales pitches, drew up plans all by himself. His efforts and the network and connections he had built in the past did help and the sales went really good. Good enough to pay for the housing mortgage in the first year itself. Moreover, by this time, I was majoring in Finance and I could lend a hand as well.

Why am I writing all this?

• Because the difficult times taught me to be frugal and the importance of saving. At a time when my peers were showing off expensive phones and riding designer bikes at crazy speeds, I was mature enough to hold myself back and not throw tantrums in the family to get me one.

• I realized that as long as it is justified, getting angry or being mad at someone is really really normal. As normal as crying out of happiness or cutting a cake on your best day. I'm not saying that anger is the best of all virtues, rather it is more like a necessary evil that all of us carry within us. The best part about when you're angry that you do have a lot of energy in you at the moment. All you have to do is to focus your energies in the right direction.

• I learned the importance of having risk-taking abilities and being a sport which I never was back in school. 

• No matter how bad and shitty place this world is, It certainly bows to righteous and ethical people.

These days, my father has a small and flourishing HVAC business and five really good people help him run it. He drives a 1998 Maruti 800 to work and walks 2 miles every evening to keep himself healthy. My younger sibling is still studies in a public school but he has the good fortune of exploring new things. He's already a black belt in Tae-Kwon-Do and lately, has picked up the guitar and has been taking music classes that I had always wanted to.
But then, since I've had the good fortune of learning so much from dad and life, that really doesn't matter, does it?