Hi, everyone
Hope you are having a good weekend
This topic is great becasue it allows lots of people to expose here what the word INFLUENCER should really mean. I hate what is means commercially these days. With some honorable exceptions, most "influencers" are the result of mediatization and have little to no practical or ethical values to teach young generations.
But that may be just my biased parroquial view on the subject speaking.
I have had lots of great influencers in life
My mother was the first one. From her I learned the value of hard work and work ethics. She was never too tired, too sick, or too depressed to do what she had to do.I have met few people stronger than her. I always thought of her when I started college and was about to quit several times due. I just had to close my eyes and picture her getting up at 4 am, after a bad night of migranes, to start housechores so that everything worked smoothly for 8 children going to school, etc.
My father, was a complicated influence. He was an alcoholic and a very strict disciplinarian. He was a national guard and that made him an absent father most of the time. So, for the time he did poorly as a father he served as a model for all the things I decided I did not want to be. I learned to despise alcohol by watching him drunk (I can drink an occasional drink, though). But then, after some wake-up calls, he changed. He stopped drinking and smoking completely. No therapy was needed, no patches, just sheer determination to do the right thing. That was quite a lesson to me.
Both of them combine a zero tolerance policy towards mischief or misconduct. I learned from them that parents who protect their children when they do wrong to others, far from loving them, are paving their road to perdition. My country needs to go back to those principles. Most young criminals are such because they have had complicit parents or relatives.
Academically, I had this one professor in college who would become my mentor and inspiration for my academic career. Frances Vargas-Gibbons was the epitome of love for knowledge and love for teaching critical thinking. She taught us all that when you decide to devote your life to something, whether that is to sell food in the streets or teach Literature at college, you can't settle for being average. You have to aim at excellence and make sure that every aspect of your life works accordingly to contribute to that excellence. Even if you don't achieve it, just the trying makes you better and makes the path worth traveling.
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Very nice @hlezama. I guess it's a given us men would put their mothers first. And I couldn't agree more about the word influencer, like most things nowadays, it's been perverted.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Thanks. You too.
I think "perverted" is a good word to describe what has been done to the word "influencer"
Yep, you said it! Influencers, the term I mean has become so skewed and warped to encompass people who couldn't influence themselves into an independent and unique thought. Anyway, I agree with you on that point.
I really like your answer Henrry, open honest and pulls no punches, just the way I like it.
Influencers, role models don't always teach us by doing the right things right? I've learned some of the most amazing lessons from people doing the wrong thing, taking roads I'd never take, and those lessons have been as valuable as the positive and inspirational ones.
Your father...A nice turn-around on his part and all simply because he wanted to...It speaks highly of his character and inner strength that he did it on simple will power and based on the choice to do it. Nice work and a strong example.
Mum's are strange creatures...Strong and capable , an unstoppable force mostly, certainly where their children are concerned. It seems yours was no different. Again, a solid role model and I'm sure you are you because of her influence.
A nice line here and a great way to finish your comment. I'm glad you used the word excellence and not perfection...It's a much better end-goal to seek.
Thanks for joining in Henrry, I appreciate it.
!ENGAGE 25
Thanks
Ben Franklin did talk about perfection, fully knowing that it was impossible to achieve, but I guess he concluded that in the process you attained excellence and felt much better trying than not.
It's always a pleasure to participate. Hope you guys had a great weekend
I find the pursuit of perfection to be wasteful and quite negative. Firstly, it's not attainable and so wastes a person's time and chasing it and failing can bring negative thoughts and attitudes. It's much better to pursue excellence and goals around that; Of course, the end-goad needs to be attainable. With some mini-goals within the main goal one get's to make a few little achievements along the way keeping one motivated and on track...Small wins more often will add up to bigger ones down the track.
Yeah, we had a good weekend. I worked around the house, just did a few small jobs I've been ignoring. Faith has been gardening all weekend, including today as well, (Monday). Hopefully yours was good too.
ENGAGEtoday.Well, I can say about this. Despite having an age difference of like 20 years, we have so much in common. In my case, I think I have more negative influencers in my life than positive ones. But I have this prerogative that I should take the positive from the negative and learn to be better.
Well, you have handled it with the maturity of someone 20 years older.
To do the right thing and to become someone you can look at the mirror, whe you are surrounded by bad examples is doubly admirable.
Thanks for your words. It's a battle I think I can win. :)
Same. I always put my Mom first who spending her whole life taking care of us. She never thinks of for herself, never travels, enjoys cooking for us every single day ...keeps all savings for her children, worry about my future when she is no longer with us who will look after me so she urges me to get marry now 😚. Honestly I really want Mom to go out and travel to other cities but she never wants 😶
For Mom, her children is all her life :)
It looks like our mothers are more alike than we might have thought.
I think that in the case of Latin American mothers, the generation that is now in their 70s or 80s was very protective and self-sacrificing, to the extreme, I'd say. I too wish they had been a bit selfish to give themselves some me-time and materialize some personal projects.
Things are changing now, though, at least here (my guess is that everywhere). Young mothers want some independence and do not feel guilty for wanting to pursue goals other than motherhood and domesticity. Of course, everythig in extremes is bad and we see pathetic examples of everything our old mothers warned us and feared about.