Yesterday, my family had the great honor to celebrate my father's 80th birthday!
At times like these, I can't help myself - I get emotional thinking about all that this man has gone through in his life. I hope that sharing his story will serve as an inspiration to you, just as it has served me!
At the tender age of 10, my father lived the horrors of World War II, his father sent to war and his mother left to care for 9 hungry children, who were at one point prohibited by the doctor, to get up from their beds. Any movement would mean a waste of energy, something scarce and valuable, given that their main staple was potato peel soup.
I will not make this a melodramatic entry, although listening to war stories is always so inspiring to me, as it makes me think about my own life, how fortunate I am and how things could always be worse, so much worse!
What I want to share about this just turned 80 year old, is the example that he has always been to me, my sister and most people who have had the luck of coming in contact with him.
Having survived the war, he immigrated with his family to a country where he didn't speak the language and didn't have two coins to rub together. Him and the remaining 4 children (the other 4 had died during the Second World War) lived in one room with their mother (their father died soon after the war) and worked in the streets, doing odd jobs for a living.
From selling underwear in the streets to wrapping steering wheels with leather, he made his way slowly and steadily to having the biggest shop in a small town and then to owning a factory of over 600 employees in the 70s-80s that was the industry leader in its segment.
As they say, life is harsh, and following an economic crisis, the factory went bankrupt and he was made to start again from scratch, this time with a wife and children to tend to. Start again he did, and again, and yet again just to be faced with the current economic crisis in Greece, where he currently resides.
What is fascinating is that this man, having been thrown to the ground so many time, remains forever positive! He is always smiling and ready to lend a helping hand to someone in need. When times are tough, he has a way of remaining calm and together. His positive outlook towards life has been something of a mystery to my sister and I, who have often wondered if he is like this because of nurture or nature.
He has taken hardships as lessons and his positive outlook makes him resilient when times are tough. Another thing that is interesting about my father, is that he always has a project going on. He always has a goal and creates vivid images in his mind of how he will attain it. He is literally, a visionary. I have heard him say time and again "Last night, before I went to sleep I saw the new project I want to work on complete in my mind. I walked through it and talked to the people involved". He is not afraid of DREAMING BIG because he is not afraid of failing big, and that makes all the difference!
To me, my father is a living example that if we remains positive, even when that takes more of us than we can stand; if we have the courage to smile, even when all we want to do is curl up and die, we can gracefully and resourcefully get through the hard lessons this life throws at us.
Remaining positive is not just another fad line. Scientists are proving the impact our beliefs have in our lives. In his revolutionary book called "The Biology of Belief", renowned cell biologist, Dr. Bruce Lipton, shows us how our thoughts and beliefs affect every cell in our body. Remaining positive might take effort, as some of us might have been programmed to concentrate on hardship and catastrophe. Luckily for us, we have a way around this, as Dr. Lipton states in his book: "Endowed with the ability to be self-reflective, the self-conscious mind is extremely powerful. It can observe any programmed behavior we are engaged in, evaluate the behavior and consciously decide to change the program. We can actively choose how to respond to most environmental signals and whether we even want to respond at all. The conscious mind's capacity to override the subconscious mind's preprogrammed behaviors is the foundation of free will."
Here is to eighty years of smiling in the face of adversity and laughing at life's harshest lessons.
If my father can do it, what stops you and I from doing it too?
At times like these, I can't help myself - I get emotional thinking about all that this man has gone through in his life. I hope that sharing his story will serve as an inspiration to you, just as it has served me!
At the tender age of 10, my father lived the horrors of World War II, his father sent to war and his mother left to care for 9 hungry children, who were at one point prohibited by the doctor, to get up from their beds. Any movement would mean a waste of energy, something scarce and valuable, given that their main staple was potato peel soup.
I will not make this a melodramatic entry, although listening to war stories is always so inspiring to me, as it makes me think about my own life, how fortunate I am and how things could always be worse, so much worse!
What I want to share about this just turned 80 year old, is the example that he has always been to me, my sister and most people who have had the luck of coming in contact with him.
Having survived the war, he immigrated with his family to a country where he didn't speak the language and didn't have two coins to rub together. Him and the remaining 4 children (the other 4 had died during the Second World War) lived in one room with their mother (their father died soon after the war) and worked in the streets, doing odd jobs for a living.
From selling underwear in the streets to wrapping steering wheels with leather, he made his way slowly and steadily to having the biggest shop in a small town and then to owning a factory of over 600 employees in the 70s-80s that was the industry leader in its segment.
As they say, life is harsh, and following an economic crisis, the factory went bankrupt and he was made to start again from scratch, this time with a wife and children to tend to. Start again he did, and again, and yet again just to be faced with the current economic crisis in Greece, where he currently resides.
What is fascinating is that this man, having been thrown to the ground so many time, remains forever positive! He is always smiling and ready to lend a helping hand to someone in need. When times are tough, he has a way of remaining calm and together. His positive outlook towards life has been something of a mystery to my sister and I, who have often wondered if he is like this because of nurture or nature.
He has taken hardships as lessons and his positive outlook makes him resilient when times are tough. Another thing that is interesting about my father, is that he always has a project going on. He always has a goal and creates vivid images in his mind of how he will attain it. He is literally, a visionary. I have heard him say time and again "Last night, before I went to sleep I saw the new project I want to work on complete in my mind. I walked through it and talked to the people involved". He is not afraid of DREAMING BIG because he is not afraid of failing big, and that makes all the difference!
To me, my father is a living example that if we remains positive, even when that takes more of us than we can stand; if we have the courage to smile, even when all we want to do is curl up and die, we can gracefully and resourcefully get through the hard lessons this life throws at us.
Remaining positive is not just another fad line. Scientists are proving the impact our beliefs have in our lives. In his revolutionary book called "The Biology of Belief", renowned cell biologist, Dr. Bruce Lipton, shows us how our thoughts and beliefs affect every cell in our body. Remaining positive might take effort, as some of us might have been programmed to concentrate on hardship and catastrophe. Luckily for us, we have a way around this, as Dr. Lipton states in his book: "Endowed with the ability to be self-reflective, the self-conscious mind is extremely powerful. It can observe any programmed behavior we are engaged in, evaluate the behavior and consciously decide to change the program. We can actively choose how to respond to most environmental signals and whether we even want to respond at all. The conscious mind's capacity to override the subconscious mind's preprogrammed behaviors is the foundation of free will."
Here is to eighty years of smiling in the face of adversity and laughing at life's harshest lessons.
If my father can do it, what stops you and I from doing it too?
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