Father's Day is a day where you hear many people talking about how their dad is/was the "best dad in the world." As far as I'm concerned, my dad probably wasn't the best dad in the world by any stretch of the imagination, but he was the best dad I could have had, and he was my best dad very specifically because he wasn't perfect.

My dad had many admitted flaws and he made mistakes all the time, in work, in life, in personal relationships, he'd screw up just like anyone else does. But he tried to do his best to learn from his mistakes, to try to become a better person, husband, father, brother, co-worker, you name it, and he wasn't afraid of making mistakes, because he believed that messing up is simply an implicit part of learning.

He also taught me that one of the hardest things we can do is fight and battle with ourselves to become comfortable in our own skin, not worry about the "should'ves and could'ves" and try to not hold ourselves to those kinds of "perfect" standards and expectations we tend to demand from us on a daily basis. Dad had an incredibly difficult time battling depression, self-doubt, fear and anxiety, and he was open and honest about it.

And maybe most importantly, dad taught me that if you want to have good relationships with the people you care about, and especially the people you love, it's incredibly important to put in as much work, mistakes and all, as possible to make sure that you give time, energy and effort to maintaining those relationships, regardless of whether they're every-day ones or twice-a-year ones, and that there is nothing more important than making sure that people knew that you like, love and value them...

But at the same time, my dad taught me that if you truly love someone, all that hard work--which can be very, very consuming--just doesn't *feel* like work most of the time. The energy, effort and, well, time you put into caring for people you love unconditionally...It simply doesn't need to be repaid, and is given for the simple sake and satisfaction of knowing that you can give it.

My father was anything but perfect, anything but at complete peace with himself, and never anything other than a flawed, very *human* man who simply did his best to learn, grow and try to be the best person he could be, for his own sake and the sakes of those around him, by learning from his mistakes and putting in as much effort as possible to simply care about the people he loved because he treasured the opportunity to do so, even if it was a pain in the ass or "came out wrong."

Despite his faults, and perhaps *because* of them, my father taught me to be a person who embraces his imperfections and does his best to simply accept them and learn from them while trying to become the best person I can be in this life-long process of truly learning how to live, trying to approach this learning process with a sense of humor, and just plain old loving people as much as you can and trying to learn the incredibly hard task that is valuing yourself along the way.

He's still my role model some 20 years after he passed away, and while he was most certainly not the best dad in the world, he was the best dad I could ever have asked for, and I still love him and still miss the best friend I've ever had because he was anything but perfect. He was flawed, he was just a man, just a human being, and he messed up just like anyone does, and by simply admitting and embracing his flaws and mistakes, he was the "perfect" dad for me.