Your father helped me in a very personal way that most forum members here don't know about. When he was running the interviews thread, I was next in line for an interview. I had a pre-interview chat with him on AOL to round out some of the basics for the one that would be printed. That conversation had a profound impact on me that I wish your fathe could have known about before he left this place.
A few forum members may recall me posting that I graduated from high school at a very early age, as I had opted for home schooling after negative experiences around people my own age. If I'm not mistaken, your father was a teacher, correct? In any case, he gave me some very valuable advice about dealing with people. Sometimes you have to accept people's faults – whether they be easy ones, things that they don't do on purpose, things that I had already learned to accept from people – or more difficult things, such as people's close mindedness or willfull ignorance. I had become so judgmental of people who just didn't "get it", people who didn't care, people who I felt were so stupid and immature and air headed, that I actually impeded my own quality of life by avoiding situations where those people might be completely. I had secluded myself because of my own pride. I wasn't learning to deal with negatively influential people in the right way, I was only avoiding them.
Whether he meant to or not, your father helped me to see that I needed to calm my judgemental mind, and accept that there will always be people who I don't like – in any situation. But that doesn't mean they're monsters, they're just people.
Now I'm friends with just about every Tom, Dick and Harry I meet. I'm incredibly easy-going since letting go of my own pretentious pre-judgements. Your father was a big part of that, and he never even knew it.
Rest in peace, my friend.
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