Believe it or not, the actions of people around you can help to determine who you are and the morals you have. I myself have been shaped by mistakes and actions in which I witnessed my own father partake in during the earlier years of my life. Watching him make good choices, as well as bad choices, has influenced my own ethics which I live by today.
A Little Background In the fourth grade, I was part of a church Christmas musical/play based on the three wise men. I acted as one of the three wise men, as I was a great singer back in the day. Nowadays, there’s a good possibility of me shattering a window at any attempt of singing. I remember how nervous I was about being the center of attention for the night. Little did I know, later that night on December 17th, after the musical was over and I went home, the worst night of my life was going to begin. What happened? On this night of December 17th, my parents announced to me and my two sisters that they were getting a divorce. This broke our hearts. In the later weeks to come, when I figured out that the cause was my father not being loyal to my mother, I began to resent him. Watching my mom handle the divorce, I saw just how much cheating on someone can hurt them. Shortly after the divorce was finalized, I swore that I would be as loyal as loyal gets so that I never put someone through the pain that my own mother went through.
How I Felt About it over Time As time passed, I began to look past my father’s mistake as I craved the relationship we once had. I longed to hug him every day after he returned from work. I missed all of the stories he would tell me about events that occurred on a recent business to various parts of the world. I missed throwing the baseball in the yard. I even missed laying in the living room lining up my toy cars while he watched the races on Sundays. Once I got older, and became close again with my father, I realized that his life wasn’t any easier than my mom’s. Both were attempting to make end meet, and somehow we just managed to make it by each month. I watched my dad work three jobs just to pay child support, pay the bills on the house he was renting, and pay for the one weekend a month where he would have three kids that he spoiled rotten.. Time passed, and money started to become even more of a problem to my father. One weekend a month turned into seeing him once every three months if we were lucky. Fun-filled weekends turned into having to put back ice cream at food lion because he didn’t have enough money to buy it. I watched my father scrape the bottom of the barrel for so many years just to get by. Watching him in these situations made me realize that my father had become much more authentic than he was at the time of the divorce. He started making better decisions and got his priorities straight.
Things Starting to Turn for the Good Slowly as the years passed, I watched my father succeed in ways that were seemingly unimaginable just a few short years earlier. Renting houses turned into buying a house to call home. A 2001 Ford Taurus turned into a 2009 Ford F-150 as well as a car for me. Once a month visitation, turned into once every other week plus a week long summer vacation to the beach each year.
How it Effected Me Watching my father transform from seemingly inauthentic to in my opinion, one of the most authentic people I know, has really influenced who I have become. I know what cheating can do to someone, so now I do everything I can to be honest in relationships as well as every aspect of my life. One of my goals in life is actually to be to the point where everyone in my life can expect nothing but the truth to come from me. People were constantly trying to get me to do things i knew my girlfriend wouldn't approve of in high school and I always responded with “I can’t do that, I don't want to upset Emily.” They would typically reply with the comment “you don't have to tell her everything,” and I always seemed to retaliate with “I tell my girlfriend everything.” My friends began to realize that i was a person that they could trust with anything, so now many of them come to me and talk about anything bothering them. I actually had a friend named Jacob, who said I was the only person that he felt he could actually trust in high school. If you ask people that I am close to, they will tell you that I do everything I can to keep away from lying. They will also tell you that I am one of the most hardworking people that they know. I again, learned that working hard and striving towards perfection can help you get a lot out of life from my father. I saw him transform from an almost poverty stricken man, to a man I can go to for any financial problem I am currently having. His hard work ethics have very much influenced me by watching him throughout the years because I know that no matter how bad things get, there’s always the possibility of a great outcome. Although I wish my dad stayed loyal to my mother, and wish that my father wasn’t a past victim of financial hardships, watching him in these situations throughout the years made me who I am today. I have the upmost respect for my women and I have a drive to do my best at everything I do. These two things are a big part of who I am, and I will do everything I can to keep these very important to me.