by compound complex 7 Replies latest jw friends
Greetings:
Apart from the obvious -- "You have your mother's nose" and "You got Dad's cleft chin" -- do you see any of your parent's behavioral traits and attitudes in yourself? Likewise, do you observe how your own children are 'apples fallen not far from the tree'?
The good, the bad, and the ugly?
Nature and nurture?
I welcome your comments.
Thanks.
I look like my father. My mother and I spread his ashes over a small pond some years ago. Upon reflection, I don't know if I've ever entirely thought like him.
I make awkward dad jokes when meeting new people or when I'm with workmates or when having friends for dinner. And I catch myself telling the same stories for the 30th time.
And I'm a grammar nazi. (But not in English, that's not my mother tongue.)
My father was a drunken bum and womanizer. I never met him and so I know nothing about his other personality traits. My mother on the other hand was a dyed in the wool Jehovah's Witness. She had lots of bad traits too. However, outside the immediate family she was generous to a fault. (Albeit with her children's support money!) And she was hospitable to people she liked. She was a good cook and could put on one hell of a meal! I have been trying to eradicate from my personality as much negativity and hurtful traits as I can since 1996 when I realized that I too could be a real asshole! 'Watchtower logic', as I am fond of calling it, can do a real number on our ability to think clearly, rationally and objectively about ourselves and others. Since Watchtower is constantly lying to us, I think it breeds in us a propensity to lie to ourselves and others as a matter of course, without even thinking about it. My worst trait that keeps popping up in me over and over again is contempt for other people. I saw it in my mother and I see it clearly in myself. I have been unsuccessful in eradicating it thus far.
Thanks, schnell, for your reply.
Maybe, someday, you'll have a few recollections on your and your father's similarities.
Best wishes.
Good replies, too, Schnufti and sparky!
YES! Telling and retelling the same stories and a tendency to lie . . .
Similarly, I have some traits I'm not yet able to get rid of -- I just hide them, like my cleft chin under a beard!
Be well.
Somehow got a combination of OCD from my dad, I'm always rearranging things to what I think is most logical (lots of complaining from the wife), but losing things like my Mother. Once a week I search for all the coffee cups (more complaining from my wife, I just can't win!).
Spoletta:
Sounds so much like home, when I was a kid, and today, as a very confused adult (as Dad said).
THANK YOU!
