What my 72-year-old father teaches me about life
Empathy is a forever life strategy.
Raw and Real Conversation
Today I want to speak about my father, because he is turning 72 next week. Yasss!!
And a bit or two that you (and I) could probably learn from him.
Let’s go!!!
Ever since I have understood life, my father has been a simple man.
His wardrobe consists of strictly white shirts only, with grey/beige/navy pants.
We sisters gave him and Mom a couple’s wrist watch as a gift on their 25th wedding anniversary, which he wore for years! Fun fact: Next year it is my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and he has changed just one wrist watch during this quarter of a century!
He has just three pair of shoes, one for going out, one slipper for use at home, and one extra which he doesn’t touch.
It has always been like this. I’d like to believe it is true for a lot of households, not just mine.
And while the world worships Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg for dressing plainly, a lot of fathers of millennials have been minimalists by design.
How does this minimalism affect you as a person?
I’ll tell you how.
I have held 3 jobs in the past, and on the day of tendering resignation in each of those three jobs, I sobbed.
A lot.
With him.
On the phone.
And he was this Zen like man, who was there to console me each time. Worth noting that in every single one of the three times, I did not have a new job offer coming along, yet he cared little about the future and more about the pain of letting go I was going through in the moment.
And it is not just these 3 times.
Each time there is something difficult I go through, I am somehow able to conceal it from my Mom, but with my father, the truth always figures a way to pop out.
There may be many reasons to it, but the biggest one is that this man lives such a simple life, that he has the bandwidth to deal with life problems. Of himself and his family.
He started working at the age of 6. (Please forgive us for the child labour. That has never happened again with my generation or my sister’s kids either. So it’s all fine now. Also, the person doing the work of getting him employed and the one who did employ him passed away years ago.)
Thus, all his life by design has been a journey of figuring things out. He hasn’t had the time to think about sleeves with cufflinks, the quintessential Gucci belt almost every man wears, or even a thought of spending money on a Rolex, when you are looming under the responsibility of getting your daughters married.
But there is one instance I’d like to share from his last year’s birthday, which never tends to leave my mind.
You will be most likely blown away by this
My father’s Activa was in the ICU, so we decided to get a new one for him.
A couple of weeks before making the purchase, I had simply put the thought in his head, so that it gave him the headspace to deal with the “looming surprise”.
On the day of purchase, I did not ask him. I just told him. And then told him I will call him in a couple of hours to the outlet to get the delivery of the vehicle.
I have always seen him loving the colour white. White clothes, white interiors for his shop, even white (vanilla) cake. (Special mention to his disdain for chocolate cake 😢). So I finalised that colour.
When I went back home to take him with me, everyone (but my father) gave a conflicting suggestion. My mom, sisters, BIL were of the opinion that we should pick up anything but white colour.
“Pick up a darker colour.”
“White would get dirty quickly.”
“Other than black, what were the colours available?”
The father maintained a peculiar, detached quietness that is his very nature oftentimes. Not giving any opinion.
Because I was the one making the final decision, I still finalised the colour white.
We finally took the delivery of the white Activa the same evening.
But that is not where the story ends, my friend.
That night, when my sisters and BILs had left, my father told me and my mom the story of his first scooter:
He got his first scooter in early 90s after waiting for years. It was a grey Bajaj scooter (I still remember the number, it was 9102). Anyway, it cost him a whopping ₹5,000 back in the day. Had he gone for a white version, he would have had to add ₹600 more, which he could not afford back then.
That is when he decided he would get a white scooter for him some day.
That some day came 17 years after that grey scooter was sold, followed by him driving another blue Activa because back then colours were not available, followed by his new white Activa finally when he turned 71.
Not to mention, he still didn’t voice his opinion!
He waited almost 30 years without a scooter of his choice, while practically running a home and fulfilling everyone’s wishes!!
I do not think anyone could live selflessly like this, other than parents.
Why am I telling this to you?
My friend, parents (especially a lot of fathers) hardly voice their wishes. It is just not possible for a lot of them. So, you simply have to hone the art of observing their life, and listening to them even when everyone else is going ahead with logic.
So, three days before my father turns 72, I do wish your father too gets to live all his unfulfilled wishes. And may we all have the empathy to understand it.
It makes life meaningful beyond measure.
Deep down, this is what we all are looking for.
2 Raw One-Liners
To have a lot of money and not a lot of self-blabbering mouth is an asset we should speak about often.
Intelligence is knowing when to start. Wisdom is knowing when to move on.
3 (for) Real wonderful lines I read last week, that you should too:
“Spend your adult life making people feel special.” — George Raveling and Ryan Holiday, What You’re Made For
“When you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.” — Oprah Winfrey, What I Know For Sure
“As someone who works in the corporate, your number one job is to understand people and give them what they want. Everything you want, will come back quicker than you had expected.” — The Corporate Life Handbook
Nishtha Gehija is a CA turned full time writer, ghostwriter of books for CXOs (famous for her non-AI, fully authentic content), and a daily blogger at nishtha dot blog.
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