Ying and Yang

We are flying out to see you this week.

There is a really interesting dynamic that happens between mom and I when these trips are planned. I have never been encumbered by the thought that I am not needed, wanted, or that my presence will not immediate shine light, happiness, and fix everything. Mom, on the other hand is much more introspective about these things. She always extends the courtesy of trying to understand what the need is and how the timing works for what is going on in your life. I have always had a deep appreciation for her doing this. It is a tremendous expression of faith in both of you and your ability to balance all the things that are going on in your life.

Ying and Yang translates into shadow and light. It is how seemingly opposite and contrary things are interdependent on each other and how they interact to make a greater whole. It is why if you talk to one of us more than another it will start to seem like giant pain in the ass. Without the contrast of light and shadow it is hard as hell to appreciate the depth of any one thing. Light and shadow give things their depth.

This is life lesson stuff. There are times when charging into the fray is the perfect thing to do. Making sure there is actual fray that needs to be charged into is an important life skill. Creating a fray (when there was not one prior to your arrival) is time consuming, hard on everyone, and depletes your key resources for no good reason.

Over the years your mom has given me a real appreciation for Ying and Yang. I am better at being able to see the depth of things that are outside of my immediate life experience. And as much as I love to charge headlong into the fray, I chose which ones to charge into instead of having them choose me.

Love Dad

I Built It

I cringe when I see all the signs of the political season.  The worst of these is "I built it".  The implication is that building something without the assistance of anyone else is the preferred way of doing things and the standard.  

Doing anything by yourself is never going to yield the results that working with someone else will.  Working alone will always make every task from the simple to complex harder than it needs to be.  All the tired old things you have heard forever about being part of team are very true.  If you look at any person you use as  a model for success behind them you will find a group of friends, family, and associates (team) that has helped move them along towards their goal.  Sir Edmund Hillary was the first man to touch the summit of Everest.  Behind him (literally steps) was Tenzing Norgay and a couple more steps behind an entire support team.  Sir Edmund did summit Everest alone.  There were legions of people who did small to negligible things for him that he accepted and as a consequence he was able to use his brain power towards the more critical aspects of his endeavor.  He would have not got any extra credit for hauling his own tent to base camp.

And so it is with everyone. Being able to accept help from the people that surround you is a strength not a weakness.  There are plenty of times in life that you are going to have traverse that last part of your journey on your own.  To have balanced everything around you so that you have the mental and physical strength to complete those last steps is what you need to shoot for.  So if you can take smaller stuff off of your plate, do it without apology and stay focused on the important things that really do require your angst and worry.

There is another important part of letting people help you, it lets them validate something important about who and what they are.  Like everything else in life, you have to understand this is not all about you.  It almost never is.  My dearest friend who has stage 4 bone cancer has a great grasp on this.  The small things we are able to do (and they are soo small compared to what he is going through) help us be a part of his journey.  It is not much different from the people that are trying to help you now.  In a small way they participate in your journey.

If you have every helped someone who needed it and they let you know they were genuinely grateful, nothing feels as good as that.  For me, it is my way of paying things forward, a way to say thanks for all of the amazing things in my life.   I still regret deeply that along the way I have pushed people away that wanted to and could have genuinely helped me along my journey.  It was one of those life skills I wish I would have learned a lot earlier in life.

Love Dad