What religious, spiritual or just plain life lessons did your father teach you?

You get more when you need less.

And keep enjoying the good things.

Don’t rely solely on your heart for making decisions, your brain is there for a reason.

To treat everyone equally and based on their actions.

Life lessons: Pay your bills on time. Don’t cheat on your taxes. Do things for people when they need help, and don’t complain about it. Mean what you say.

Spiritual lessons: Don’t trust people who are strongly motivated by faith.

He showed me precisely and exactly how NOT to be. My own children have thanked me more than once for paying attention….

“Don’t be a pussy.”

Mine died when I was 17 years old and up until then, he worked so much, we didn’t see much of him. The lesson is to not work so much that you don’t share yourself with your children.

My Dad was a selfish man when I was growing up. Put himself first.

I take after my Mom, who put others before herself. Her family was the most important thing to her.

He showed me what I don’t want to be in life.

He has mellowed out a lot since. We’re closer now.

My dad’s religion was Work. He tried his best to raise me in the faith, but I was a poor disciple.

The one precept of his work religion that actually stuck with me was his care to do a job like it ought to be done. As a little kid, I was deeply impressed by how he would go way beyond the minimum requirements of a job, and elevate it to the level of a devotional act. No matter how seemingly trivial the project, “good enough” was never good enough.

I absorbed that. I’m a very DIY kind of guy, and I still channel my dad’s deep devotion to workmanship.

1. Don’t ask a question if you don’t want to hear the answer.
2. Don’t spin tales, it,will come back and bite you.
3. Don’t worry until you know.
4. Whatever happens suck it up and move on.
5. The vast majority of people in this world are jerks, always keep that in mind.

1. To assume the worst

2. To trust no one

3. To be honest, responsible and ethical.

4. To take care of your family

5. To show no emotion and shy away from touching

6. To only make promises you can keep

7. To incur no debts

8. To never spend principal.

9. To choose only to do jobs that are worth doing well, no matter how small.

10.To balance your checkbook to the penny.

From his experiences, I learned to be true to yourself and not to force yourself to fit others’ expectations.

He had a very demanding, mean mother and he grew up gay in the 1940s. He went through “therapy” in the 50s and was told he was “cured” of homosexuality and to get married and have a family. Needless to say, that was a bad idea. I am a strong supporter of gay marriage. I do not feel that my father was a bad parent because he was gay- but rather because he was miserable for trying to be something he wasn’t, and because had shitty parental role-models.

Many things but I think the thing he said that had the most influence on me was
“Don’t waste your time worrying about what others think of you, as long as you know that you’re a good person and doing the right thing in life then no one else matters.”

these answers have far exceeded my expectations. For some reason I want to cry.

The man who raised me was not my biological father. He taught me that “You can’t agree to disagree, because they’re fucking wrong.”

Son, when you see a field full of cows don’t run down the hill & fuck one of them, walk down & fuck em all.”
Yeah that’s right, he was a fucking idiot :)

Never start a fight, but if someone starts one with you, finish it.

Learn how to pee outside without getting it on you. (We spent a lot of time hunting.)

Fool me once? Shame on you. Fool me twice? What twice, there is no twice. Fool me once, fuck off.

My sperm donor taught me that status & money trump feelings. He is a drunk unhappy old man.

My dad on religion:

“It does not matter one lick if that guy was really the son of God or not. Doesn’t matter if those Eastern guys had magical powers. They set a goddamn standard. Now you be like them as much as you can and don’t worry about whether the clowns on TV think you are going to hell or not.”

He taught me that he knew all the answers and anything I might think to the contrary was wrong. In my thirties he asked if I knew what “lucubrate” meant. I told him, because I happened to know, but not in the words he would have used, so I only got partial credit.

@Sunny2 What, no points for irony?

He taught me to respect all people no matter their station in life.

He taught me to be sensitive to other people’s struggles.

He taught me how to read a map.

He taught me how to plan.

He taught me to love music and dancing (both of my parents really).

He taught me that money gives people independence and autonomy, the focus should not be about buying things.

“Don’t gimme no gun for Xmas.” ;-)

Marvin Gay, Sr.

When a friend of mine died, I told my dad that I did not know how I would ever get over it. He taught me that “you never get over it, you just get through it.”

My dad taught me that the negative things you say to your children will effect them throughout their entire life.
“Maybe you should lose a little weight” is not something you tell a 10 year old.

AMEN! @cheebdragon, that was one of my Pop’s teaching’s also.

He taught me many things but what I try to always hold onto is that he told me that God doesn’t make junk so I should always walk with my head held high.

I owe a lot to my father in that he taught me a veritable trove of lessons I will never forget.

That he did it by being my anti hero and having no concept of me is incidental.

I am much the wiser for them.

The biggest one is when people around you are silent, don’t assume its a sign of respect or agreement. It might be a good time to examine your position and behavoir and modify it.

Also talking around subjects will have you going in circles your entire life.

Be willing to admit mistakes and flaws. It is not a sign of weakness but one strength and shows a willingness to learn from them.

Emotions without thought are dangerous.

Kindness and an ability to recognize differences will get you much farther then intolerance.

Life will always continue no matter what choice you make until it doesn’t and then it doesn’t matter. (That is the hardest one for me to act on)

Don’t take your anger out on your loved ones they will turn their back on you.

Control is overrated.

There are some negative ones that I picked up that I have been working on recognizing and undoing. But that is just me putting my own stamp on my life.

I’ve learnt to do the polar opposite of everything he’s done, and the way he lived. Ah, he was my ultimate antagonist, well my biological ‘dad’ anyways. The relationship I had with my step-dad on the other hand, though it was somewhat rocky, was still more amicable than not.

I’ve learnt some things from him (step-dad) but the biggest plus to me concerning my step-dad was the fact that he never tried to shove his religion down my throat, was open-minded when it came to his beliefs, and that he never tried to make me something that I’m not. Basically he accepted me for the person that I am, and he was there for me when I needed him the most, and those were a huge plus for me.

Hmm. My dad taught me to laugh. And he taught me about camping. That’s about it.

Once I went camping with my dad. We were sitting by the fire, eventually I went in my tent and fell asleep. He stayed up for a while. The next day he told me that while feeding the fire, he offered a prayer to the Manitou, which are like Indian spirit deities that take care of us. He said he asked it to forgive mankind for its violence and folly, but then he changed his mind, and just said, aah fuck it, we don’t deserve forgiveness.

Don’t give a fuck what it’s worth to anybody, my dad was awesome.

Hang on a second.

So you are telling us that your dad used this as an opportunity to teach his child a Life Lesson about “how things really are” in the world ? And that he also felt the need to throw the ultimate profanity in there to make his point…??

You’re right, Symbeline…..your dad WAS awesome….

He taught me the Rosary.

He taught me that the church will be the first to turn its back on you. (A lesson I failed to take at the time)

He taught me that wisdom is wisdom, no matter how you get it.

He taught me not to be afraid of things that have an explanation. (Horror movies and the like)

He taught me that sometimes it’s totally worth it to skip school to play video games with your dad. I wish I had a few more of those marathon gaming sessions stored away in the old memory banks.

My dad taught me that the key to success in anything is preparation. It’s something he really prides himself on. For example, if you were going to deliver a speech his (preparation) advice would be something like, plan what you would like to say, write it down but learn it so that a lot of it is in your head and then, before you are due to speak, take some moments to visualise yourself delivering the speech and it going well. My brother and I have made fun of him quite a lot for his “visualise it going well” theory but apparently it’s proven to be successful in the likes of performers and sports people etc so maybe we should take him a bit more seriously!!

My dad is awesome!

He taught me that a country with almost all its cities and towns in ruins can be rebuild.

He taught me that math can be awesome.

He taught me that learning a musical instrument greatly enriches one’s life.

He taught me not to take bigmouths in high school too seriously.

@AmWiser later when I was around 16 and weighed 110 lbs (pretty thin for being 5’6”), he told me I was too skinny and I should eat more…...I was so fucking pissed. That was when I realized that 95% of everything I could remember him ever saying to me had been negative judgements and critiques.