Tag: Wisdom

473,040,000 Seconds

473,040,000 seconds. I didn’t know fully what to expect that Summer day when you smiled at me. How could either of us appreciate the journey we were about to embark upon? Our plan was to simply have some fun in life, something we both needed as surely as we needed air to breathe. No, I didn’t know what to expect or what I was getting myself into. It scared me as much as it thrilled me.

Since that moment, I have watched us grow into full-fledged adults. We have laughed and we have done the hard things, neither of us naive enough to believe there aren’t more hard things to endure. The seconds that will follow still scare me as much as they thrill me.

378,432,000 of those seconds have been shared with you, in the grandest experiment to be imagined…parenthood. Part science project and part creation of art, the laughs have outnumbered the tears to this point. Somehow, we have managed to not screw the whole thing up, all the while growing closer to each other.

Neither of us were looking for these sublime seconds that we’ve shared since that Monday in June. Somewhere along the way, quietly and earnestly we decided to keep pulling in the same direction. And pull we have. A strange paradox has been created, where I can remember every one of those 473,040,000 seconds since you smiled at me, though it is difficult for me to imagine a second before, without you.

However we measure our time together, I’m thankful I get to measure it with you.

I’m Not Going To Be That Dad – 4 Ways To Not Become The Overbearing Dad

Sometimes, when I reflect on what it means to be a father to a soon to be teenage daughter, the weight of that responsibility can seem a bit overwhelming.  There’s an internal struggle between a primal desire to protect her and a hopeful desire to see her blossom into the young woman I know she can be.  There is that constant tug and pull between protecting her from the world that can hurt her and allowing her to learn from her mistakes in order to thrive in that same world.  In the end, I strive to not become the overbearing dad while still providing her with as safe as an environment as is reasonable, to allow her to mess up and learn things for herself.  For me, it’s much easier in theory than it is in practice.

When the rubber meets the road, how does a man do this?  Here are four things that can help find that balance, hopefully alleviating some of that weight on our shoulders.

  • Be a good listener – There are going to be things your daughter isn’t going to talk to you about.  This goes for any parent, not just dads.  There are going to be subjects that you will be outright terrified to discuss with your little girl.  You’re a dad, you have to move past that.  While there are things you’re daughter will decide are off limits with you, it’s important to let her know that there is nothing off limits with you.  And you have to back that up with your actions and reinforce that message early and often.  Establishing that you’re there for anything, you’ll be surprised at what she will share with you!  And knowing what is happening in your daughter’s life is one of the fundamental elements to know when you might need to step in and keep her safe.
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Dad and his “little” girl
  • Accept her heart will be broken – Dad, the great protector.  I would run through a brick wall to protect my daughter’s emotional well being.  But, we can’t protect her from everything.  Trust me, your daughter will have her heart broken.  Whether it be a romantic interest, the ending of a friendship or some other disillusionment with life, people will hurt your kiddo.  But beware, this is a major opportunity to become the overbearing parent.  We have to accept that not only can we not prevent heartache, it is also vital for her to learn how to navigate the hurt.
  • Love – This is a verb.  Show her how a good man treats the people in his life.  If you’re married to her mother, model the behavior necessary for healthy relationships.  Your daughter is looking to you for examples and one day she will choose a partner in life, based on the expectations you have set. If you are no longer in a relationship with her mother, make sure your daughter knows you hold her in high esteem.  This can be hard but again, you’re teaching her that this is how a future partner behaves.  Teaching her how to break up with someone and move on from a relationship is just as important as demonstrating how to treat someone in a healthy one.
  • Protect when you must – At the end of the day, you’re still her parent.  You have lived through most of what she is going to experience.  When a truly dangerous or unhealthy situation presents itself (remember you’re going to convince her to talk to you about anything!),  you have to step in and keep her safe.  This is one of several reasons why you’re not going to be popular at times with her.  This is ok.  When she does make mistakes, and she will make them, remember the goal is to teach her better decision-making skills in the future so she can one day keep herself safe.  It’s ok to be disappointed and express that.  But it will be counterproductive to condemn her for making mistakes.

Dads, I would love to hear about your own experiences.  How have you managed to strike the balance between protecting and letting go?  I want to hear from you!

What Makes A Man A Man?- Separating Myths Of Masculinity From Societal Responsibilities

What makes a man a man?  Wow, is that a loaded question.  It’s a question I’ve been exploring for many years now.  In that search, I’ve come to a few basic conclusions.

  • Gender is a human-made social construct, different than the sexual classification of human beings based on the reproductive organs they are born with.  In essence, gender and all of its verbiage (eg. man or woman) are fluid and largely self-prescribed, influenced heavily by social stereotypical classifications. Whether you were born with male or female (or both) reproductive organs are a static classification.
  • Because gender is based on societal definitions and society changes, there is no definitive set of criteria to answer the question of what makes a man a man.  At best, we have grossly ambiguous and unwieldy ideas of what makes a man a man and a woman a woman.
  • Human beings who lean towards more definitive, concrete thought processes often will struggle with the ambiguity associated with some societal constructs like gender.
  • I’ve discovered that the essence of being a man is not exclusive to being masculine.  It is universal and applies across all humankind.

Perhaps this would be a good time to point out that I am not an expert anything relevant to the world.  These are my conclusions and I own them.  I also own that I have been wrong about a lot of things in life.  Facts have been known to change my mind, and I’m certainly not done learning in this life.  These are my observations and you’re more than welcome to disagree with them.  You’re more than welcome to help me learn and keep me on my toes.

With that admonition, let me expand just a bit on my bulleted observations above.  I identify as a man.  I am a male.  I am confident that there are both biological and societal influences that factor in my self-identification as a man.  Others classify me as a man as well, as I have presented myself this way in the world.

Though I am a man, I don’t like or embrace everything society has prescribed as masculine stereotypes.  While I love sports and barbequing meat, you won’t catch me working on a car or framing a new addition to my house.  I have the physical finesse of a giant lumberjack, relying on brute force as a means to an end, yet I thoroughly enjoy the theater. All of these attributes are integral to what makes me uniquely me, yet they have a loose relationship with my identification as a man.  Just because I enjoy the scent of fine leather, the warmth of dark mahogany woods and other masculine accouterments doesn’t make me a man.  In fact, all of the attributes I’ve described could just as easily be shared by a 10-year-old boy or girl.

All of this has led me to the conclusion that what makes a man a man (or a woman a woman) has far more to do with maturity and fulfilling social responsibilities than it does with the identification with masculine attributes.  To be a man (or a woman), one must be accountable to each other and must strive for alignment between their words and their actions.  They must care for the people in their lives and be good stewards of the world around them.  These attributes are neither masculine nor feminine.  They are merely human.

I am not ashamed of my masculinity.  In fact, I embrace it.  I’m comfortable with it, even if I don’t embrace all of the attributes generally classified as masculine.  I also appreciate my traits that society has classified as feminine in nature.  My ability to be a nurturer or to enjoy a classic Jane Austen novel is not in conflict with my identity as a man.  It is a compliment to it.  I’ll write about masculinity as the dark side that can accompany some of those attributes.  But these attributes have little to do with me being a man.

These are my observations as I enjoy my 47th trip around this sun.  As I continue to evolve and learn, I can predict that my observations in the future will also evolve.  That is what learning is of course.  Maybe with your help, we can learn together.  Maybe some of these words will resonate with you.  Maybe grand and important dialogue will come as a result of this exploration together.

 

You’ve Changed! – Embracing Growth

Have you ever had someone tell you, “You have changed?”  Someone who tells you that you’re just not the same person you used to be.  My typical first reaction to such accusations has been to vehemently deny, often offering a counter accusation.  I haven’t changed, you are the one who has changed!  The reality is that it usually, it’s a far more difficult reality.  Usually, both people are right.

The reality for me is that I have changed.  I am not the same 18-year-old kid that tried to convince my mother that I was going to take a year off before starting college.  I am not the same 21-year-old who decided to leave college in my Junior year to start my first career.  I am not the same 20 something that tied my entire identity to that career.  I’m not the same young man that mailed it in through too many broken relationships.

Oh, I have certainly changed.  I changed when I realized that my career didn’t define me.  I changed when I realized that finishing what I started really was important.  I changed when I learned that not aligning my actions with my words carried real consequences.  I changed when I became directly responsible for protecting, teaching and caring for a brand new human being.

All the while I am, in many ways, still the goofy kid I used to be.  At my core, I’m still kind, compassionate and thoughtful.  I have never stopped being curious.  I have never stopped learning and growing.

Grappling with this paradox often presents great challenges.  We outgrow relationships with others.  What we once did for fun we stop doing, replaced by other priorities and desires.  We grow up and we mature.  We learn and we define ourselves, busting out of molds made for us by others.  If we do it right, we embrace where we want to go, while never forgetting where we have been.

There few constants in this world.  We live.  We die.  We change.  Never run away from change.  It remains the only vehicle for us to grow up.

42 – Lessons in Leadership

If you haven’t noticed, I am a huge baseball fan.  On Sundays, when my friends would head to church, I went to the back yard and would throw tennis balls against the house, just to practice fielding ground balls.  It was an unbreakable connection I shared with my father.  It is part of my own personal heritage; our country’s heritage.

One of the reasons I love baseball so much is that it carries with it a certain level of class and sportsmanship, missing from many other organized sports.  Yes, there are a few rogue players who are generally not nice guys, but as a whole, they carry themselves well.  Nobody epitomized this demonstration of class better than the man that baseball recognizes today.

On this day in 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play Major League Baseball, a barrier few in my generation could ever fathom.  The challenges he overcame were enormous.  Hated by many, including his own teammates at times, he met each challenge in front of him and conquered them all.  He overcame them not just completely, but with class and grace.  He wasn’t just a ballplayer, he was a leader on and off the field.

Number 42 will never be worn again by a Major League Baseball player, except for this day each year when all players will wear the number 42 on their jerseys.  There are lessons to be learned all around us in life.  The next time someone tells you that sports are not important to society, know that they are not looking hard enough.  Life lessons connect with people in a multitude of ways, including through the game labeled America’s Pastime.  Thank you Jackie!

 

Life’s Number One, Guaranteed Life Hack -The Real “Secret” to Life

I want to let you in on something.  I have spent the greater part of my life in search of the ultimate life hacks.  I was in search of every possible drill down and shortcut available to give me an edge in achieving success and happiness.  After all, the media today pumps us full of articles like “The Ultimate Guide to Being Happy” and “How To Appear 6’4″ When You’re Only 5’9” (the latter I’ve read over and over again).  Promises to provide us with foolproof tips and tricks, as if someone was guarding these secret ideas until that very moment to share with us, if only we invest a few minutes to read their article.  It turns out, there is a secret life hack.  And I’m going to share that with you right now!

The secret is that there are no secrets.

That is right my friends, there are no secrets out there.  In life, there are no hacks and no shortcuts.  The knowledge needed to become the person you want to be is here for the taking.  It is not held under lock and key or stingily protected in secret by happy and successful people.  Everything we need is there if only we are honest and humble enough to accept that there are no hacks or shortcuts in our desire to figure life out.

It turns out, what we’ve been looking for has been hiding right under our noses the entire time.  With all the complexity that accompanies navigating today’s hectic world, we have become conditioned to believe that the “secrets” we seek must be equally complex.  And while there are certainly complex problems in today’s world that require equally complex thinking, there are certain fundamental truths about the human experience that have remained relatively unchanged throughout annals of history.  We have even assigned a specific word in the English language for these fundamental truths.  They are called maxims.

You surely have heard many maxims and likely don’t think much about their proverbial meaning.  For instance, there’s the one about the precocious avian creature who acquires the terrestrial annelid.  We better know it as the early bird gets the worm.  Of course, it’s not to be taken literally, unless perhaps your job is to hunt earthworms.  But the truth behind the principle is unwavering.  Most things worth achieving require a lot of hard work.  You reap what you sow.  You get what you give in life.  You want to be loved, you first must love others.  Want people to treat you with kindness? Treat others with kindness.  Simple principles for a complex world.  The secret is that there are no secrets.

It can’t be this easy, can it?  No, it’s not that easy. The simple acceptance of this premise alone is difficult for many of us. But embracing these fundamental truths is one of the cornerstones in building a foundation for achieving what you strive for.  It is merely the beginning chapter in curating a life.  And of course, not everyone’s curated life looks the same. Yet, the fundamental truths remain for all of us.  They are there for the taking.

I want to hear from you.  What are the maxims that you have embraced in your quest to be the best you?  Share your ideas by leaving a comment below!