Words cut like a knife

•  “You’re not smart”
• “You’ll never make it in life”
• “What are you stupid?”
• “You’re not going to do anything special with your life”

These are just some of the things that I had to hear from my own father growing up. The constant belittling of my future and my potential. You speak these words without any thoughts of the harm they do. No matter what you are told by Mother, you’re words still flow like a waterfall of daggers. Cutting deeper into my soul until I feel like I’m just existing.

“Corrective” actions

Belt or hands. These actions also appear to be your go-to choices for “correcting” my behaviors. Most of the time you only made me more adapted to your actions. Eventually, I start laughing at you and your actions. This act of “defiance” only hurt your ego. These actions happened so frequently that Mother would run away from you and not come back for hours. You couldn’t understand why. You couldn’t understand how you couldn’t remove the bat from my arms when I had enough. Yet another insult to your ego. A child was physically stronger than his father.

Me now

Dear father. Guess what. All those things you told me about not going anywhere in life, not being smart enough, or being stupid. I have accomplished more than you have with your life. What do you have over my success? NOTHING!!

I have a job that pays me WAY more money than you ever had. Yeah be jealous, that hurts your ego to know that I make more than you ever did. It hurt your ego when Mother made more than you for two weeks each year.

I have a nice house. You live in a trailer park full of retirees, druggies, and other types of people. You even lived across the street from Mommy and Daddy until they both passed.

What level of education did you ever achieve? High school at best. So what, you got a certificate to be a massage therapist? Guess what? That cost you your job for your lack of control of your mouth. I have a Bachelor’s degree with honors in a field that is highly sought after.

Your ego is so easily bruised. The simplest things make you feel like you are less of a man. You can’t handle cold hard facts. When you started having disagreements with your brother and you didn’t try to communicate properly to sort things out and decided to let things go that was unacceptable. Well, guess what? Not only can your words cut like a knife, but so can mine. I know being told to “act like a father/man instead of a sperm donor,” shattered your fragile ego. And you know what? I don’t regret that statement at all.

Apologies?

Apologies? What, admit that you were wrong? How are you ever wrong? Admission of guilt still hurts your fragile ego. The best you ever spoke close to an apology is “I know I wasn’t the ideal father”.

Lessons from all of this…

Apologies are a great way to admit when you’re in the wrong and attempt to make amends.

Don’t allow yourself to have an inflated ego. Admit when you don’t know something or are unsure of something. Stay humble.

The elevation of voices talking over each other is a dead-end street. Speak to each other as civilized humans. If you can’t, then walk away and cool off.

Break the generational “curse”, and strive to be a better person. Keep an open mind and unlearn behaviors that past generations accepted as the normal status quo.

Think for yourself and don’t just follow the herd. If you chose to follow the herd, make sure it’s the right herd. Follow those who want to have a positive impact and not keep the same repetitious negative bullshit alive.