Happiness Diaries Episode 13: My Dad - Doug Ellis (Vancouver, Canada)

“I try to treat everyone with respect and live each day feeling good about the things I did and what I accomplished. I want to be able to wake up each day feeling good about myself as a person. Love life, it is great but short.”

Doug is my dad, the middle brother in a family of 5 growing up on Maple St in Vancouver. While his body occasionally reminds him of his age (Don’t know many 67 year olds who can do a slalom ski dock start) he certainly doesn’t live like it! Dad put his wealth of talents to work in many fields from structural engineering design, to construction management, to designing aircraft fire retardants, to surveying lakes in Africa, before finding his home designing the processes for and managing a company that salvaged pulp and paper waste to create useful products. An avid sailor, talented tinkerer, rum aficionado, familial anchor, and constant traveler the retired life has fit him like a glove as he has finally had the chance to truly enjoy all the things he loves… whenever he can keep a tool out of his hands for more than 3 minutes.

Unfortunately dad has had to weather a few big storms over the last decade or so as he had to stand by as his best friend and wife slowly passed away, and followed that up with an intense battle with cancer himself. Through it all he has never let hard times break him or change his morals and staunchly upholds that honesty and respect are the foundation of a good person. Despite all the embarrassment over his ridiculous dance moves, bad jokes, and blackberry dependency it would be the greatest accomplishment in my life if I could be as wonderful a man as he is.