One of the many things we have imbibed from the western culture is to mark days to celebrate for our father, mother, valentine and so on.

The marketing whiz kids make us buy products and services by positioning them well and making us feel as if we are doing a service to our father or mother by buying the product or service they market.

I was wondering what would be a better way to pay tributes to our fathers today, 19th june , which the pundits state is “Father’s day”( the third sunday of June every year).   I would prefer to look at one great quality my father displayed in his every day behaviour and try my best to imbibe the same in my every day actions.

My father was an epitome of patience.  I was quite short tempered when I was young and was growing up.  I have learnt to be more patient as I have grown and matured as an individual and as a professional.  Today I am happy to be more patient than I was 30 years back.  However, I must admit that I have a long way to go to be as patient as my Dad was.  In his entire lifetime, I have seen him lose his cool only twice.  So, may be I can work further since once one of my office colleague politely gave me a feedback some years back that I lost my cool twice in the one year she worked with me.  So twice a year to twice a life time – I have a long way to go.

You could try to identify one great quality you could imbibe from your father and then check where you are on that quality today.  The gap could be your promise to yourself

Celebrate Father’s Day this way.

S Ramesh Shankar