I turn 44 tomorrow. I have six kids. I spent the last two days with my youngest daughter as she started on her medicine for an ear infection. My oldest son is active in school, plus he is taking his driver’s license test tomorrow. My second son is enjoying junior high. He is always on the go. My oldest daughter has actually started on her first serious “story.” I am still on a learning curve at work. Life is busy (and the house is a mess).
I am tired.
I know that my life is not as stressful as others. In fact I know it is not as stressful as some of my closest friends that are battling cancer and other health issues. Their life struggles are more serious than mine. I know that they are tired, too.
I am tired.
Many of you that have stopped by to read this are tired.
But that is OK. In fact it is a good thing to be tired. It means you are in the middle of living. That you are spending your time and energy on the little things that build our life. I understand that being overly tired or stressed has negative effects on us. I also know that we need a break from stress to recharge. But that’s not what I’m talking about. When we actually live our lives than we are going to be tired. And that’s a good thing.
I’m going to use football for a second (you are free to use any activity you were involved in during school). Remember practice? Remember being tired? Remember coach yelling at you to fight through the pain as you ran down and backs? Me, too. Now remember how good it felt 30 minutes later after a good workout? Still tired, but feeling strong? Yeah, me, too. We practice more than we played. Why? To build strength. But even during a game, we were tired. We had to fight through the pain to make the next play. We had to perform, even when we were tired.
In our everyday life we don’t have as many big moments (like a game on Friday night), but they do happen. And sometimes those moments are life and death battles, like my friends who are fighting cancer and other health problems. How do we build the strength to fight when those big moments come? We live our everyday life. We become tired because of it. We build strength from that state of tiredness.
I am tired.
And I’m feeling stronger because of it.
This is dedicated to my friends and family who are battling right now. You are stronger than you know. You are loved more than I can express.
I know that I am using a road metaphor for another blog post. The “Road Closed” post was about the way life can alter our paths. This post will address the idea of work, of breaking new ground, of doing what it takes to get to where you want to be.
I have officially been on the job for a week. This morning I was touring the CCC Hastings campus to get a better understanding of where faculty were located. The campus has a number of construction projects going, one of them is the street pictured above. To be honest I stood there for a few minutes thinking about everything that has happen in just a few months. Life has not been easy. Yet, my work has started to create a path for me.
It has been hard work.
But that has been the key. It will be the key to any success I have in the future. The only way my second novel will be published is for me to work. The only way I can help CCC faculty is to do the work to strengthen my skills in certain areas. The only way my family will thrive is because I work at being a better father and husband.
If you log onto to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or any social media platform you will find inspirational content. Photos with inspirational quotes. Videos of people doing amazing things. We need that inspiration. I need it. But lost in all that feel good content is the simple fact that nothing happens until you work, until you tear up the ground and build your path to your success.
This idea has been fostering in my head and heart for a while. And I am not sure if I have a clear path to develop it for you, but I will try. Like so many times before, different situations have presented themselves over the last couple of months and I will try to connect those dots to expand on the idea of FAITH.
I am not going to talk about a religious based faith, but the faith we have in people. Some readers might use the word TRUST but I will go to a deeper level.
In our relationships trust is the noun, faith is the verb.
On that note, let me share the life events briefly, and then I will connect them all together:
A workshop on equality in the classroom
Dr. Phil
Being a dad
Job Transition
An interesting mix, I know. There have been other smaller moments, but these four have presented serious examples for me considering the idea of Faith.
Workshop
A big moment in the workshop was the section for evaluation of our assumptions. We were presented with an arrangement of situations / questions like, “I assume a good student has a good reason to miss class, while a bad student does not.” Another example, “I treat all Christians the same.” The base goal of the workshop was to challenge our assumptions so that we create a classroom that allows all our students to feel welcomed in. This generated some hard discussions on how we handled situations. And not just for the classroom. People let us down. Students let us down. But do they let us down because we already expect them to? I’ll come back to this…
Dr. Phil and Fatherhood
Just so you know, yes, I watch Dr. Phil. Part of the reason is because he comes up with some direct statements / questions that hit straight to the issue. I will not go in depth about the episode but concentrate on a single question Dr. Phil asked. The episode was about parents who did not like the man their daughter married. Dr. Phil asked the parents, “So, you don’t have faith in how you raised your daughter?”
I have discussed this idea before in an earlier post (Trust Your Foundation), but the emphasis on the idea of faith in Dr. Phil’s question resonated this time. In my own parenting life I am at that junction that I have to have faith in my kids. Both of my boys are now teenagers. They are spending more time with friends, becoming involved in activities, and simply becoming men. Do I have faith in my parenting?
Job Transition
This last example has two components. Yes, at the time of posting this I will not have a job in education for the next school year, but that is a different issue. During one of my interviews I was asked what I expect behavior wise from my students, this was before the workshop (but I love how life will highlight a theme for us). I simply answered that I expect them to be people. I expanded on the idea that we are all works in progress but that I do my best to respect them as individuals and trust they will do their best. I acknowledge that sometimes students let us down, but you keep working toward being the best you can possibly be. Simple put, I try to have faith in my students. I’ll come back to this…
The second component of this example is the feelings I’ve been experiencing through this time of my life. It is normal to wonder what you did wrong or what you said that could change an interview in your favor. You start to think about past jobs and interviews just to compare and contrast the situations. Which brings me to the point of sharing this, I know how empowering it is when someone has faith in you. The late Mr. Monter had faith in me and he expressed that from the interview on. I contacted Mr. Monter on the last day that the English position at Centura was open. He could have said that the position was filled or that they had already finished inteviews, but he didn’t. He asked if I could have my application to him that day. I said yes and got an interview the next week. I thought the interview went well but was not holding my breath because I understood the situation. As I drove home I told myself that Mr. Monter had already decided on a candidate. I was right, but Mr. Monter called me on my way home to offer me the job. He was going to offer the position to someone else he told me. But he said something told him that I was the right person. Through the years working with Mr. Monter he expressed that same level of faith in me and my colleagues. That made us want to be the best teachers we could.
The Connection
In our relationships trust is the noun, but faith is the verb. When someone expresses their faith in us we rise to the occasion. Yes, I have let people down. Yes, people, students, have let me down. And it hurts when that happens, so we stop doing it. But when we stop having faith in people we start to assume, we start to build relationships on easy to fill boxes. We are all works in progress, but that progress is dependent on someone having a little faith in us. Thank you to everyone who has had faith in me.
Many of you know that my family decided on one word to focus on for the year. Stories was mine. Having my first novel published is one of the highlights of living by my word, but is not the most impactful event. Focusing on the idea of Stories has made my dad decisions more enriching. Not easy for sure, but I notice that my relationship with my family has more depth. We have more stories to share.
As a dad many decisions come down to how much hassle is involved. Especially with six kids, we are not so spontaneous as we use to be. By keeping my word in mind as opportunities arise I try to make the decision that will provide the best story for us. To be honest this is not always the easiest. Sometimes the family actually gets separated and my wife and I do run around a bit. But there is an underlining vibe of joy amongst our busyness.
I am not recommending that you have to decide on one word for the year. I am not recommending that you have to do everything your children want. What I am recommending is that if you want a story to tell tomorrow you will have to write it today by the decisions you make.
I’ve been working through a deep life concept, but I will get to that in a minute. Let me share some anecdotes that connect to the idea first.
First my youngest daughter. She is a year and a half. She is at that stage where life is simply awesome. She is learning to use the stairs, learning to talk, learning to blow kisses. She will stop eating to stand in her seat and dance. Her brothers are teaching her how to fist bump. Life is filled with everyday joy for her. At graduation this weekend a mother of one of the seniors reinforced that idea when she stopped me to say how wonderful it was to watch my daughter dance during the graduation. There is a moment in the ceremony when the seniors give roses to their parents. This year the song was “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake. The mother then said, “She could all teach us what it means to be joyful.”
As many of you know I am at a major crossroads in my life. And things are not going well regarding what next year will bring for me. I let that stress get to me a couple of days ago when I lost my cool in front of my kids. I can’t even remember why now. But as I read stories to my middle girls and asked them what their favorite things were from the day, I was brought back to the concept I had been thinking of…
I’m not talking about feeling happiness. I’m talking about a deep appreciation of the blessings we have in our lives.
Happiness is eating brownies. Joy is making the brownies for someone else and enjoying their smiles as they eat. (Of course we have a brownie, too. We can feel joy and be happy at the same time.)
Negative feelings can over shadow our lives. It takes strength to combat feelings of fear, doubt, and disappointment. That strength comes from Joy. It takes courage to see the beauty of our lives, a child’s smile or the stars shining, when we feel like our world is falling apart. The catch is that when we pay attention to those things that bring us joy that leads us to feel the strength to battle through the tough times. It is a cycle, a positive cycle that builds us up.
Joy doesn’t remove a bad situation. It gives us the strength to get through it with a loving and confident heart. To stand up and dance even if it is dinnertime.
What is it? And why is it important in our everyday life?
I was listening to Lupe Fiasco’s song, “Super Star,” this morning as I walked. I was thinking about life. The track team is a week away from districts, the track meet that determines which athletes make it to state. I am again at a crossroads in my career. My family is growing up, third daughter graduates from preschool tomorrow. I am experiencing different kinds of fear in my everyday life. But Lupe’s words just kept hitting me:
And then I remembered the line from Remember the Titans, “ You want to act like a star, you better give me a star effort.”
Fear, doubt, uncertainty causes us to freeze. Let’s be honest, we have all succumb to fear. But I think it is because we have forgotten who we are. Forgot what our skills are. Forgot the strength of our hearts and our foundations. Standing strong on your skills generates that feeling of confidence, and confidence generates action. And action is the fuel that enriches our life. We need to stay connect with who we are, to feel confidence in any situation because it will give us the direction we need to move toward. I’m not saying it isn’t scary, but that fear cannot withstand a confident heart.
This is not just the name of my blog; it is foundation to the way I live. I get slack, even from my own family, about how deep everything is to me. One student this year blurted out, “Sometimes a song is just a song!”
Even in the early entry college course the students complain about how their heads hurt after lessons because of the depth I try to take them. And I understand why, but Ralph Emerson said it best in his speech “The American Scholar.”
To the young mind, every thing is individual, stands by itself. By and by, it finds how to join two things, and see in them one nature; then three, then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over by its own unifying instinct, it goes on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, discovering roots running under ground, whereby contrary and remote things cohere, and flower out from one stem.
I like the line, “…how to join two things, and see in them one nature, then three, then three thousand…” It is all connected. Everything we do matters in some way. I try to live and teach with this idea, on a deeper level. Why, you might ask. What is the alternative? That things and moments in our life have no meaning, no value? I don’t believe that. Our lives are built everyday, in every small moment.
It is all connected, and I am glad to have connected with you, reader, through this blog. Have a great day!
The last time I talked about blueberry muffins was 2013. A lot has changed since then. This morning I made the muffins while the rest of the family was still asleep. It has been a rough couple of years, for many different reasons. As I reflected on different aspects of life, fatherhood kept coming to the forefront of my mind.
The teenage years are hard. I know all about the chemical changes my sons are going through. I know they are facing peer pressure. I know they face issues with people calling them names, or asking them to compromise their values (I do think this generation is meaner and angrier then when I grew up, but that is for another post).
Then throw in social media, girls, and just discovering their own path in this world to create a confusing time for them and for me and my wife. I don’t know when they will be silently moody or sit and talk to me for half an hour about their frustrations (as highlighted by my second son who didn’t speak a word to me when he first got up this morning).
But it is Sunday morning and I am making blueberry muffins.
Like many parents, we have dealt with dishonesty, the heavy sighs when we ask them to clean their room, the issues all parents have dealt with. But as I mixed in the blueberries in the batter, I thought about how I cannot actually control my children. I cannot make them think, or feel, or believe anything. As teenagers they are in the hard process of deciding who they are. What they stand for. What future they will create. This is knowledge that is hard for me to deal with. Some lessons do not need to be learned the hard way.
As I put the muffins in the oven I understood one thing. What I could do is make blueberry muffins every Sunday morning. As a family we will sit around the table and talk, or at least nod our heads in agreement if we didn’t feel like talking. What I can control is the example I set for my family. The lessons they learn about life come from our home; this is their foundation. I know there will be rough spots to come. I know my heart will ache with the decisions they make, but my wife and I will be here to love them and to show them the right way.
Got to go, the timer just went off. The blueberry muffins are done. Time to gather the family.
While I was washing dishes, my third daughter, now five years old, peppered me with questions.
“Why do we have toothbrushes?” she asked.
“To help keep our teeth clean,” I said.
“Why do we have a nose?” she asked.
“To smell things,” I said.
“Why do we have chairs?” she asked.
“So we can sit down,” I said.
She even went to one of our junk drawers and drilled me on why we needed everything in the drawer. I was having fun coming up with answers while she kept asking why we needed things, even asking why we needed walls. That took me a second or two to come up with an answer, “So, that we have rooms.” She seemed content with my answers. But she hit me with a question that made me pause.
She was on a roll asking about the body. Why we needed elbows, knees, and why we had a tummy.
Then she asked, “Why do we live?”
I couldn’t think of a quick fun answer. I did think of a deep philosophical answer, but knew it wasn’t right for the moment. How could I provide an answer that she would appreciate?
Without a clear answer in my head I said, “We are alive because it is a gift, an opportunity for us to see what we can do with our lives.”
“To go to the zoo?” she asked.
“Yes,” I chuckled, “but to do other things, too.”
“Like make brownies,” she asked, “or to be a dad?”
I turned from the sink to look at her as she sat at the island playing with her My Little Ponies. He finger still in a splint. And a smile that made her eyes shine.
“Yes, like being a dad,” I said.
What is your answer to the question, “Why do we live?”
At the dinner table last night my second son said he had a blog post for me. I said, “OK, what is it?”
“We are balloons.”
He continued to explain that most of life we are held onto by someone. But we can be let go and float up into the sky. When we are up in the sky we feel lost and just wander around. He moves his hand to emphasize how random we move through the air.
He continues to explain that after awhile we start to fall back to earth because we lose air. At this moment my first son asks what happens then.
My second son explains that hopefully we find another person that will fill us back up and hold onto us.
I told him I would write the blog. If you have a moment would you share a comment for him on his idea? Thank you.
I did ask him if he had seen the film The Red Balloon. My son said no, so I thought I would share it with his blog so he could watch it.
It is all Connected 