#16. Papa's advice for living!
It was my father’s 70th birthday few days back. The family got together to celebrate the occasion. During some quiet time, I asked my father for his advice for living. For the 16th article of ‘ParsingThoughts’, here are the 16 lessons that he shared with us - covering health, parenting, career and life in general.
Take what you like and ignore the ones you do not.
Here you go:
Health First all things later. Health needs to be the top most priority. Nothing matters more than exercising daily.
Eat less. After 30 years of age eat only 70% of what makes you feel full. When you are 50 yrs reduce it to 50% of capacity.
Listen to your body. Prevention is better than cure. More the doctors you would visit more ill you would fall. Its your body, you understand it better than anyone else so take care of it.
Kids are your responsibility. Never outsource their upbringing to someone else. You can never overdo personal attention to kids.
Kids Education. Never cut corners on their education. Give them the best of the best education that your means allow.
Time. A busy person is always able to find time for important things in life, an idle person is never able to find time for anything.
Treat Perfection as a direction and not as the goal. Do not target for reaching perfection and loose sleep over it. Most of the time done is better than perfect. Its okay so long as you tried moving towards perfection.
Generate Wealth and stop when it starts consuming you. We must be ambitious and aim to generate wealth, succeed in our careers. More important is to know how much is enough and when to stop. Stop as soon as it starts to impact your health and family.
Forgive and Forget. Revenge, does more harm to you than the other person.
Do not take things personally. Let people say whatever they want - do not react. Maintain a smile. Stay out of arguments. This is one of the qualities he has observed in all people who were highly successful in their career.
Know what’s in your control and more importantly what is not in your control. If your environment cannot be changed do not stress rather adapt your self. That’s how species have evolved in nature.
Family over others. Outsiders will not help you in trouble times. Only family and close relatives would come to the rescue. Always stay in touch with them, help them and never break off from them.
Things happen if you really want them to. If you are determined enough, there is some kind of magic that happens and somehow things turn out the way you wanted them to be at the end.
Cooking. One must know how to cook. Cooking is something you cannot live without incase of emergencies.
Do your own work. Do not request kids to fetch water for you or your spouse to brew the coffee or make tea. This way you remain active. You like it when you do it yourself. More importantly one less reason to have a fight over.
Never be disrespectful to anyone. One must always be dignified in dealing with people. There would be times when you are unable to help or provide support to someone. But never be disrespectful. In hindi, he said, “Gud na bhi de sako per gud si baatien zaroor karo”.