Who are the biggest influences in your life?

Today’s article is for the daily promote. Who are the biggest influences in my life? When I recount my life from childhood, thinking about the person that influenced me the most so far in my life, the answer pops up in my head as my dad.

My dad is an extreme person. Yes. That would be the first word comes into my mind. He is extremely kind and ferocious at the same time. I often see his kindness in his getting along with friends. He repay people ten times what he received from them. He is always sympathetic towards people who are living a harder life than him, even a stranger. He is easily touched by moving stories or movies. He has a big heart. I still remember so vividly how hard he cried one time when he called me in middle school. The reason was that China national football team failed to go into the finals of the AFC Asian Cup. I couldn’t understand his emotions back then, but I did say to myself that “Dad is indeed so kind. I wish he could show less of his iron fist side when he was dealing with me”. Yes. He has always been strict with me, my study, grades and life. He raised me up as a boy. I remember when I was in kindergarten and primary school, Unlike other parents who were giving their kids a ride, my dad would ask me to run after his motorcycle to school. When the neighbors saw me walk to school sometimes, and gave me a ride. My dad would ask to step down and ran. As I am old enough to joke about how much I dislike him doing that to me, he would justify his doing saying that was done for my good.

However, if you are mean to him, like some of his fake friends did, and stabbed him in his back, he would make sure to bet everything he has for the revenge. That I learned from an incident happened between him and one friend of his that I knew. The friend used to hang out with him a lot, yet he secretly copied my dad’s business and poached my dad’s employees, and eventually started to steal my dad’s clients. That’s the last straw. My dad started his revenge by offering much lower product price and much higher salary. Even though he might end up losing a lot of money. He cares less about making a profit than giving that person a lesson. He dislike dishonesty and betrayal like any other person. He would not easily let go of big harm that was done to him. I can obviously feel his anger when he is in such a state.

My dad is also very perseverant. The thing that impressed me the most was about my high school entrance examination. There was this high school independent recruitment test happening. The high school was the best in my hometown. However, the test was only open to students from certain counties. My dad didn’t know this piece of information until two days before the deadline. In order to qualify me for this opportunity, he managed to update my birth place from city A to B in just two days. He didn’t have any sleep during the two days, used every connection and way he possibly had, and made it happen. I remember one of my classmate’s father thought my dad was incredibly capable while he was not able to make it happen for his son to take the test.

So I learned from my dad that I should be grateful. Most importantly, I should never give up easily. There are so many situations where things are not looking promising and chance of success is so low. However, I was able to achieve what I wanted by sticking to it and not giving up. Of course many times failure still happens even when I keep trying. Yet it is not as regretful and bitter, and often I would gain something new from the perseverant trying as well. I feel this is the biggest asset my dad gave me. And I am very grateful.