Life Lessons

At dinner the other night, my wife and I were discussing something that had happened that morning. And I guess, we were starting to get short with each other and Baby A grabbed my wife’s hand and my hand and just said OK!. Mommy Ok! Daddy, OK!

And then he went back to playing a game on my wife’s phone, but in that moment, I had an immediate flash back to be being a kid with my parents, except, when I asked my parents to stop fussing, they didn’t. But as soon as my son said OK!, my wife and I both just stopped. We didn’t say a word and I couldn’t.

I couldn’t say anything because I had too many flash blacks, thinking about my parents and listening to them fuss and argue. But my son taught me that there is a time and place. There is a time to have discussions and in front of your kids is not the place. And even though we were at a restaurant and were not loud or disrespectful, it effected my son.

Sometimes, you can learn a lot from your children, but are you listening? Are you watching them and picking up their cues? I know that I have learned not only not to fuss in front of them, but I’ve learned unconditional love.

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Disappointed, a word that is often used, but used in haste. I had something to happen this week and when I told my wife what happened, she immediately asked how I felt and the only word that I could think of, was disappointed.  I had been given a chance to do something really cool and that could have been a HUGE opportunity for my family and more importantly, it would have gotten me back to Texas. But, it doesn’t look like it is going the way that I wanted and for the first 24 hours, disappointed is the only word that kept coming to mind.

I spent hours while driving thinking through and replaying the conversation, over and over again. And then it hit me, maybe it is ok that I am disappointed? It shows that I really wanted the opportunity. It shows that I was passionate it about, but at the same time, maybe I was looking for more out of it than what was there.

But today, I woke up with a different view point. Though I’m still disappointed, that has changed to humbleness and gratitude. Today I am grateful that I got the call. I am honored to have been considered. Today, I wonder if the timing was right?  And more importantly, I realized that it is ok to feel disappointed in things, but it is what you can learn from that experience can teach you life lessons forever.

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This story just hit me this morning and not just because the team came together to do this for their fellow teammate, but because several of the players realized that there is more to life than popularity.

Kids learning life lessons like this, will forever be changed and will continue this goodwill gesture throughout the rest of their lives.

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My daily commute is about 24 miles one way to and from work. Not bad, gives me a little down time, time to think, time to plan, time to just wind down from the day.  I will admit it, the commute has gotten old of late. Traffic has been awful. Today for example, to drive 24 miles to work, it took 1 hr and 15 min. But something happened this morning on my commute, a quick thought as I watched the  the time on my GPS drift further and further away from 8:00 am. As I approached the cause of the delay, I saw a family standing on the side of the road, beside their car. And my frustration with not getting to work early as I had hoped, went away. It went away because, that could have been me. That could have been my wife with the kids. It could have been something much worse than a broken down car.

So even on long commute days, I can still learn a lesson about patience and more importantly, the value of what is important in life.

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I’m going to get nailed for this post, but oh well, here goes. Trophies. I hate them and here is why I have a problem with giving them out to children playing sports.

Kids today are growing up and thinking that if you try your best, then everyone gets trophies. Wrong. I understand kids playing t-ball, teach the fundamentals and do not keep score, but there comes a point in time that kids need to learn that there are winners and there are losers and at the end of the game, that trophies are not handed out for doing your best. Kids need to understand that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes, it rains the game out. Point being, we can not always win every game. And we sure as heck do not get trophies as we grow up and go through life for trying hard.

My nephew called the other day to tell me that he got a hit in his t-ball game. And that was awesome. I was so proud of him and I wish that I could have been there to see him run the bases, because when he called me, I could tell how happy he was. And he told me how they all lined up at the end of the game and congratulated the other team. So when I asked who won, there was a long pause. So I asked which team scored the most runs? Again, a long pause. So, I asked if everyone got trophies and they did and he was so happy.

I get it, trophies symbolize something to little kids, a since of accomplishment. But it also sets the bar low too, because in life, we have to work harder than the other person to rise throughout the company and move ahead.  We need to teach kids that it is OK to work hard, that it is OK to put in the extra time at practice to get ahead. By just saying that everyone is getting trophies, it just says that everyone is at the same level and the are not. I have two sons, I am guessing that one is going to be better at baseball than the other.  I do not know for sure, but that is just my guess. But I am going to tell them how when I was a kid, I hit 200 balls a day, year round. And I would shoot 100 free throws a day, year round. Or I would run to stay in shape, year round. I did not want to be average, I wanted to start at either short stop or third base for my baseball team and I did. I wanted to be either the Point Guard or the Shoot Guard and I wanted to be the one that the coach would point to at the end of the game when the score was tied, to take the winning shot and I was. Hard work pushed me to the next level, not getting a trophy and it has continued throughout my work career as well.

So, today, after lunch and I do my job, I think that I am going to ask if we can all get trophies, because we all showed up today. Good job us!

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