If you want to live a quiet life, live a quiet life.
Seven things my father taught me, by example.
Thanks to all who came out for our Candlelight Chat last Sunday with the glorious Dr. Ellen Hendriksen, on the topics of perfectionism, social anxiety, and Ellen’s latest book. The video replay—along with Ellen’s famous chart that shows you how to avoid counter-productive loops—will go out in a few days to paid and scholarship subscribers - please stay tuned!
Today is the fourth anniversary of my father’s death. In his honor, I’d like to do my annual share of these seven things that he taught me by example.
Do beautiful things, just for the sake of them. If you love orchids, build a greenhouse full of them in the basement. If you love the sound of French, learn to speak it fluently, even though you rarely have time to visit France. If you love organic chemistry, spend your Sundays reading “orgo” textbooks. My father pursued these passions, and many others besides (stamp-collecting, classical music, the list goes on).
Find work you love and work that matters, and do it as excellently as you can.
Make a life where you’re as free as possible from the forces of dogma and bureaucracy.
If you want to live a quiet life, live a quiet life. If you’re a humble person who has no use for the spotlight, be a humble person who has no use for the spotlight. No big deal. (I got the tendency to march to my own drummer, from my father. On many subjects he would shrug his shoulders, with no fanfare, and go his own way.)
If you happen to be a doctor, take care of your patients – really take care of them. Study medical journals after dinner, train the next generation of physicians (my father kept teaching until age 81), spend the extra hour to visit the bedside of your patients in the hospital. (Here’s a letter from one of those patients, which we found after my father passed away. He never showed us these things while he was alive.)
If you’re a husband, take care of your wife, even when she has Alzheimer’s and can’t walk and asks you the same question again and again and again and again and again and again…
If you’re a parent, teach your children the things you love, like music and poetry, so that one day they’ll love them too. One of my earliest memories is asking my father to play the “chair record” (Beethoven’s “Emperor’s” concerto, whose name I was too young to pronounce) over and over again.
My father and I talked, just before he died of COVID. He was in the hospital, trying to breathe.
“Be well, kid,” he said, as he hung up the phone.
And I have been well. And so, I hope, will you.
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What are some of the most important things your parents or other guides have taught you, or that you hope to teach other people?
If you’d like to share your thoughts below, or share this Kindred Letter with a friend, you can do those things here.
The man I called Dad was sadly not my paternal father. I say sadly because I was the result of an extra marital affair by my mother. I was born in England Just before the end of WWII. These things happened I guess when husband and wives were separated due to the war effort.
But coming back to dad, he was the world for me. Not once did he ever reveal any emotion or thoughts, he may have had due to that situation. In fact, I think he went out of his way to be very special for me. And reflecting on the past, I think he favored me amply, indeed better than my other siblings. For my 16th birthday he gave me a wallet with a ten-shilling banknote inside. Well, the ten shillings are long gone. But I use the wallet daily to this day. There's little chance I'll ever forget him.
He taught me many things: how to listen, how to read, the difference between a trombone and a trumpet, between a Symphany and a concerto, politeness' and incivility and so much more.
I hope I have been half as good as he, for my children.
Susan, this brought tears. How blessed you are to have had such a close relationship with your father!
A couple of things passed on by my father:
Keep choosing life. No matter what. Even when things appear utterly hopeless, choose life!
Humanize, humanize, humanize every space you enter. The cranky nurse in the palliative care unit? She’s having a tough day, just like you. Flirt with her. Make her laugh.
If you find something or someone to love, go all the way. Don’t worry about what that looks like to anyone else. Give. Be a giver.
And never, ever, EVER underestimate anyone.
It’s actually my father’s birthday on Monday. Such a gift you gave me to spend these few minutes remembering him today.
Much, much love, Susan!