Tag: Love

The Things We Forget to Remember

A friend showed me some old family photos a couple weeks ago.

An uncle of his is getting older and had given him a collection of family photos and other memorabilia he’d accumulated over the years. He knew some stories, and his uncle had told him even more stories about the people in those photos.

We turned a few of them over, hoping someone had written a name or a date on the back.

Nothing.

My friend knew these were his people. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, maybe great-uncles. He knew some remarkable family stories, including stories from World War II.

But we couldn’t connect the people in the pictures with the stories.

Somewhere along the way, the thread between the stories and the photos had disappeared.

I’ve been thinking lately about my grandpa on my dad’s side.

I know a few things about his history.

He was in World War II. He was stationed in England for at least part of the war. My grandma was English (Welsh actually) and worked as an infectious disease nurse. Apparently, Grandpa was allergic to everything and had to report for treatment regularly.

Somewhere in there, they fell in love. Grandma told me some stories about their time in England. She told me about her trip over to the US after the war on the Queen Mary, alone with her first child, my aunt. She’d eventually meet back up with Grandpa when she got stateside, since he came home via some sort of military transport.

That’s a pretty good beginning to a family story.

My dad was born in Michigan, but I don’t know what brought them to Michigan.

Then there’s a blank section of the story.

At some point they moved to Southern California, where they spent the rest of their lives.

Why did they move? I don’t know.

Grandpa was an operating engineer, operating heavy equipment.

What kind?

Bulldozers? Cranes? Graders?

What sort of projects did he work on?

Roads? Buildings? Dams?

Did he like his work? Was he good at it?

Did he ever come home and tell my dad about something interesting that happened that day?

I have no idea.

There was a time when I could have asked one of them.

My parents and grandparents are gone now. So are all the other people I can think of who might have known.

Lots of memories survive.

Wars. Marriages. A child’s birth.

England survives. Michigan. California.

But a regular Tuesday afternoon disappears.

I’ve caught myself wondering what Grandpa’s mornings were like.

What time did he get up? Did he drink coffee?

Did he pack a lunch? Did he have a thermos?

What kind of truck did he drive?

What did he do on his days off?

Was moving to California some big adventure, or did he simply hear about a job and say, “Let’s go”?

I don’t actually need to know that Grandpa drank coffee in the morning. What I’d want is the coffee itself. The smell of it in a kitchen at five-thirty in the morning before anyone else was up. Their dog trying to get attention in the quiet of their house right before his workday started. Nobody thought to write any of that down, because why would they. It was just another day.

We’ve never had more ways to record our lives than we do now.

I have thousands of photos on my phone. So does almost everyone I know.

We post pictures. Send them through family group texts. Put them in shared albums. Our phones occasionally remind us what we were doing eight years ago today.

We may be the most photographed generation in human history.

I’m not sure that means anyone will know us particularly well in the future.

Someone could someday inherit 14,000 photographs of us and wonder what we were like.

I think you get to know someone differently when you stay at their house for a few days.

You wake up when they wake up. You have more time to hear what’s really happening in their lives. You learn which chair they always sit in. You find out that somebody who seems perfectly organized can’t find their keys three mornings in a row.

Traveling with someone does the same thing, only faster.

Someone is always hungry. Someone needs the bathroom fifteen minutes after you stop. Flights get delayed. Reservations disappear. It rains. You get lost. The restaurant is closed.

People reveal themselves quickly in these situations.

Thinking about all of this makes me think of something very particular about my dad.

When I was a kid, we camped a lot. We went to Lake Havasu with our boat. We went to off-road races.

Dad was meticulous about preparation.

If a trip was four weeks away, he’d point out that he didn’t really have four weeks to get ready.

He worked six days a week. That meant he only had four Sundays.

That was how he thought about it. Four Sundays to get ready.

As the trip got closer, gear began appearing.

Camping equipment. Tools. Boxes. Supplies. Spare parts for the boat. Motorcycle parts, and tools.

He was methodical about storing everything so it could be staged in modules.

For weeks, there’d be a growing pile of gear waiting to go…ready to be packed into the truck.

Dad liked being ready.

Then there was departure time.

If our plan was to leave early Friday morning, there was a very good chance that sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday, Dad would begin reconsidering the wisdom of this plan.

Why wait until Friday morning? I’m already taking Friday off. We could leave the night before. I could cut out of work early on Thursday so we can get a jump on our trip.

Who knew what might go wrong along the way? If something did, we’d have extra time.

And if nothing went wrong, we’d arrive early. Being early was useful.

You get your choice of campsites.

You weren’t rushing. We could be fully set up when everyone else arrives.

It made complete sense to him.

Mom didn’t see the genius of this plan in quite the same way.

Dad had the truck and equipment ready.

Mom had the food. And clothes. And two boys. And all the domestic stuff (Mom and Dad used to talk about Mom being in charge of domestics) to get ready.

For Mom, leaving Thursday night mostly meant she’d just lost twelve hours of prep time.

There was no father-son conversation where he explained the importance of preparation and leaving early.

I just watched (and usually helped) him get everything ready.

And now I like getting up early. I like arriving before other people. I like being prepared.

Once in a while, I find myself thinking that maybe we should leave tonight instead of tomorrow morning.

We probably inherit all kinds of things this way.

Ways of preparing. Ways of worrying. Little phrases. Expectations.

The way we organize our garage.

The way we react when we’re running late.

Nobody announces that these things are being handed down. Years later, we discover them in ourselves.

I wonder what I inherited from my grandfather without knowing it.

Maybe that’s why the missing details about him intrigue me.

I’d like to know how he thought long before I came along.

I’d like to know what he did when a trip was four weeks away.

I recently heard about another kind of writing that seems almost unrelated. Writing about grief or trauma. The basic idea is that putting painful experiences into words can help us process them.

I don’t pretend to understand all the neuroscience involved, and I’m suspicious of explanations that make our brains sound like a filing cabinet where we simply move an experience from one drawer to another. But the idea itself interests me.

Something happens.

It’s overwhelming.

Eventually we sit down and try to describe it…to ourselves.

What happened? What did I feel? What am I still feeling?

Even if nobody ever reads it.

Writing like this can give shape to something that didn’t have much shape before.

It’s almost the reverse of what I’ve been thinking about Grandpa’s mornings. There, I wanted someone to have written down the feeling of an ordinary day before it disappeared entirely. Here, writing takes something that’s still painfully vivid and makes it a little easier to understand.

I’ve written for years now.

Most of what I write begins with whatever captured my attention at that moment.

Something I read. Something that happened at work. Something one of my grandkids did.

Something I’m building.

Something that annoyed me.

Something I suddenly understand differently than I did before.

I don’t usually think of it as preserving history.

I’m just enjoying writing things down.

Sometimes I wonder what someone in my family might find in all my writing fifty or a hundred years from now.

Not because my writing is important.

Because the little things in it might be.

A future member of my family can probably find my birth date.

They may know where I lived and what I did for work…maybe as little as I know about my own grandparents.

They’ll almost certainly have photos. A ridiculous number of them.

But something I wrote about pouring concrete with my grandkids may tell them something the photos don’t.

Or building a campsite. Or struggling with some idea that’s stuck in my head.

Or remembering my dad getting ready for a trip.

They might get a glimpse of what caught my attention on a particular Thursday.

I’ve heard people talk romantically about ancient societies gathering around fire pits at night listening to the elders tell stories about their ancestors.

Fireside stories notwithstanding, I suspect a lot of human history has always been lost.

Someone dies unexpectedly. Nobody ever thought to ask.

The grandchildren weren’t paying attention. The one person who knew the story assumed everyone else knew it too.

A photo gets put in a box. Fifty years later, somebody turns it over.

Blank.

We tend to think of history as big events.

The things printed in books.

But I’m more interested lately in the smaller history.

Why Michigan? Why California?

Who’s the man standing on the left side of that picture?

And what was everybody laughing about?

We’re surrounded by history while it still looks like ordinary life. It’s so easy to miss.

I keep thinking about those old photos my friend and I turned over.

Someone took them. Someone kept them. Someone else kept them after that.

Eventually an aging uncle carefully hands them to my friend because he wants someone in the family to have them.

Unfortunately, most of the stories didn’t make the trip.

Photo by Fiona Murray-deGraaff on Unsplash

Hand in Hand in Gonzaga Bay

It was 1985.

We were driving south in my parents’ Toyota 4×4, following them along the bumpy, rocky dirt roads of Baja toward Gonzaga Bay.

The girl who would become the love of my life was sitting beside me. She’d known me for only about six weeks. Still, she said yes.

Yes to Baja. Yes to the road less traveled. Yes to the unknown

Always a quiet adventurer.

Dust hung in the air. Our windows were down. The Beach Boys played on the stereo as the long road unfolded mile after mile.

We warmed ourselves in the sand and swayed together in our neighbor’s hammock. We snorkeled just offshore and rode the small swells that rolled into the bay most afternoons.

Time felt generous.

Under the moonlight, we walked hand in hand, just the two of us and that beautiful bay.

I knew then what I know today.

She is the woman of my dreams.

I’ve been blessed to live this dream with her every day since.

She’s my loving wife, the mother of our two beautiful and caring daughters, and Grandma to our nine amazing grandchildren.

And always, The Finest Gift.

Some places hold a moment from your life. Others hold a truth you’ll carry forever.

Tomorrow, we’ll celebrate thirty-eight years of marriage.

Through every challenge we’ve faced and every joy we’ve shared, our lives have been joined as one.

The life we’ve built, the family we love, and the road we’re still traveling have become our shared story, woven together and sustained by the grace of God.

This memory came rushing back as I listened to Dennis Doyle sing “Connemara Bay.” He was singing about a place in Ireland, but I was transported to Gonzaga Bay.

Photo by Mks Mkss on Unsplash

Create Anyway

There’s a big difference between having an opinion about what’s broken and taking responsibility for making something better.

We live in a time when commentary is easy.

We can criticize from the sidelines. We can point out what’s wrong. We can explain why the system is broken, why the leaders failed, why the plan won’t work, or why the people in charge should have known better.

And much of that criticism may be true.

Something really may be broken. People may have failed. The system may need to change.

But is criticism going to be our only contribution?

Creating rather than complaining is an act of disciplined hope. It says I can see what’s wrong, but I’m still willing to work.

Complaining usually says, “Someone should fix this.”

Creating says, “I can improve one piece of this.”

That shift moves us from the sidelines onto the field.

Some problems aren’t ours to carry. We shouldn’t excuse the people who caused them. We don’t pretend the risks aren’t real or the damage doesn’t exist.

But we refuse to stop at frustration.

We must ask better questions.

What can I build? What can I repair? What can I encourage? What can I organize? What can I make clearer, stronger, more honest, more useful, more human?

And what can I do even if I didn’t create the problem?

That’s leadership.

Leadership isn’t only authority or title, position, budget, or permission.

Leadership is seeing a gap and stepping into it.

It’s making the call no one wants to make. Writing the note. Cleaning up the mess. Telling the truth. Taking the first small step.

We don’t have to fix everything to make something better.

That’s important to understand, because the size of the problem can become an excuse for doing nothing.

If I can’t fix the whole system, why bother? If I can’t change the whole culture, why try?

But that’s spectator thinking.

Builders think differently. Builders understand that every useful thing starts smaller than the problem it hopes to address.

A bridge starts with a first beam. A book starts with a first sentence.

A movement starts with a first conversation.

A better future starts when someone decides their contribution will be more than complaint.

It says I may not be responsible for the whole problem, but I am responsible for what I do next.

It says tomorrow can be better than today, and I’m willing to put something in motion.

The invitation is simple.

Don’t let your only contribution be commentary.

Find one thing you can improve.

One process. One relationship. One decision. One conversation. One neglected corner of the work.

Start there. Build there. Serve there.

The system may still be broken. The leaders may still have failed.

But the future belongs to the ones who choose to create anyway.

Photo by Alex Gruber on Unsplash – The future is shaped by people willing to begin.

Die Young at an Old Age

One day, someone will describe your life in a sentence.

Think about that.

Thousands of days. Millions of decisions. Victories. Failures. Friendships. Heartbreaks. Quiet acts of kindness no one else ever noticed.

Ordinary moments that turned out to matter far more than anyone realized.

One sentence.

Last week I heard someone say, “Your goal should be to die young at an old age.”

I didn’t come up with it. I don’t even know who did.

At first, it sounds backwards.

Then you realize it may be the best definition of a life well lived.

We spend enormous effort trying to add years to our lives. Maybe we should spend just as much effort adding life to our years.

Aging takes something from all of us. Our body reminds us of that every morning.

We move a little slower. We feel the miles we’ve traveled. Recovery takes a little longer.

We gradually surrender abilities we once took for granted.

None of us escape this reality.

But somewhere along the way we’ve confused physical aging with becoming old. They’re not the same thing.

Our physical abilities may decline.

Our capacity to think, reason, create, encourage, inspire, and love can continue to rise.

In fact, they should.

Judgment should become steadier. Perspective should become broader. Patience and compassion should become easier. Humility should become more natural. Our wisdom should become richer.

The tragedy isn’t growing old, but growing stale.

We’ve all met people who became old at forty.

They stopped asking questions. They stopped taking risks. Somewhere along the way, they chose to stop learning and lost their sense of wonder.

They became experts on yesterday while quietly withdrawing from tomorrow.

And we’ve all met people in their seventies, eighties, and nineties who make us feel like we’re the old ones.

They’re curious, joyful, building, mentoring, reading, writing, learning new technology, planning new adventures.

They’re planting trees whose shade they’ll never sit beneath. They expect tomorrow to matter.

They don’t have smooth skin or endless energy.

But they know life still has something left to teach.

Don’t tell me your age.

Tell me what you’re learning, what you’re building. Tell me whose life is better because you’re in it.

Tell me the dream that still excites you. Tell me what prayer you’re still praying.

Tell me what you’ve started that you may never see completed. Tell me who you’re investing in with no expectation of being repaid.

Then I’ll have a much better idea of how old you really are.

Time is a poor teacher. It doesn’t make us wiser…it just makes us older.

Reflection makes us wiser. Humility keeps us teachable. Gratitude keeps us joyful. Purpose keeps us moving.

The calendar measures the years of our life. Our character measures the life within our years.

Life eventually gives all of us the same raw materials.

Success. Failure. Disappointment. Joy. Love. Loss. Betrayal. Regret.

No one gets through life without carrying each of them.

The question isn’t whether you’ll experience them. The question is what they’ll produce.

They will either deepen you…or harden you.

A hardened person becomes cynical instead of wise. Guarded instead of generous. Slow to trust. Closed instead of curious.

More certain than teachable. Quick to criticize. Slow to hope.

A deepened person finds patience. They are compassionate. Grateful. Calm. Quick to forgive. Comfortable saying, “I was wrong.”

Age should deepen us. Never harden us.

If you’ve lived long enough, you’ve made mistakes.

Good. So have I.

The mistakes themselves aren’t the gift. The lessons are.

Every failure can become a warning light for someone else. Every scar can become a guidepost.

Every wrong turn can become directions for the person following behind you.

Don’t just tell people what you’ve learned. Show them.

Show your children what integrity looks like. Show your grandchildren what perseverance looks like.

Show younger leaders what humility looks like. Show your friends what forgiveness looks like.

Live in the opposite direction of your greatest regrets.

That’s how wisdom becomes believable.

I think that’s what it really means to die young at an old age.

To refuse cynicism. To refuse complacency.

To refuse the lie that your best contribution is already behind you.

To wake up believing there’s still something worth learning. Someone worth encouraging. Something worth creating. Someone worth forgiving.

A prayer worth praying. A mountain still worth climbing.

One day, someone will describe your life in a sentence.

I hope it isn’t about your title. Or your wealth. Or how much power you accumulated.

I hope they remember your curiosity. Your courage. Your generosity. Your faithfulness.

The way people stood a little taller after spending time with you.

The way difficult moments became lighter because you were there.

The way your life continued to bear fruit long after many people would have settled into comfort.

Growing old is a privilege. Growing stale is a choice.

So don’t spend your final decades preparing to die. Spend them preparing to live.

Live with open hands. An open mind. An open heart.

Keep learning. Keep building. Keep serving. Keep encouraging.

Keep becoming.

And when your final day arrives, may it interrupt a life that is still growing, still giving, still grateful, and still full of hope.

May you be young at a very old age.

Photo by Destry Abbott – The next bend may hold the best part of your journey.

You’re Not Choosing Your Whole Life This Year – A Graduation Message

Graduation has a way of making ordinary questions feel enormous.

What are you going to do next? Where are you going to school? What trade are you going into? Where are you going to work? What are you going to do with your life?

That last question is the one that sneaks into our subconscious. It turns our celebration into a test. It makes a young person feel like their next decision carries the weight of the next fifty years.

Trust me. It doesn’t.

You’re not choosing your whole life this year. You’re choosing the next step.

That next step still deserves careful thought. Some choices will open doors; others will close them…and some will make the road harder than it needs to be.

But don’t hand this one decision more power than it deserves.

Your first job isn’t a life sentence. Your major isn’t your permanent identity. Your first trade, internship, military assignment, certification, apprenticeship, or business idea marks where the road begins, not where it ends.

Most lives travel roads we couldn’t have mapped in advance. One small opportunity today may connect you to a person who changes your direction entirely. One ordinary job may teach you something that becomes useful ten years later. A disappointment may save you from staying on the wrong road for too long.

You may move around. You might take a job that makes sense now and later discover it doesn’t fit who you are or what your life requires. Your priorities will change. The economy will change. A job can be a great opportunity, but it is rarely a lifetime guarantee.

Employers may invest in you when you serve their needs and (fairly or unfairly) move on when they believe you no longer do. Doors may close for reasons having little to do with your effort or character. That doesn’t mean you failed. It means you’re living in a world that keeps moving. Knowing that can help you walk into each opportunity with your eyes open.

Character, hard work, and skills all carry weight, but many opportunities come through people. The people who trust you, teach you, recommend you, challenge you, and remember how you treated them may influence your future in ways no resume ever could.

Build your life on something stronger than the assumption that one company, one industry, one credential, or one carefully written plan will carry you safely from here to retirement.

Learn how to add value. That phrase sounds like a business platitude, but strip away the jargon and it’s the oldest human question. Can people count on you for something real?

Can you solve a problem? Can you make something better? Can you be trusted with responsibility? Can you communicate clearly? Can you tell the truth when it would be easier to hide? Can you learn something new without treating the need to learn as an insult?

Can you help the people around you succeed? Can you walk into a messy situation and leave it better than you found it?

People who can do these things will usually find a way forward. Maybe not on the exact timeline they imagined. But useful, trustworthy, curious, steady people tend to create options for themselves over time.

Graduates hear a lot about jobs, majors, trades, degrees, salaries, and careers. All are serious things, and they deserve real thought. It’s good to learn skills. It’s good to earn your living and eventually support a family if that becomes part of your life. It’s good to contribute useful work to the world.

But your career isn’t your whole life.

A great resume with a lonely heart is still a lonely life. A strong paycheck with shallow relationships won’t feel as rich as you think it will.

A respected title can’t sit with you at the kitchen table. It won’t laugh with you around a campfire. It can’t pray for you, forgive you, challenge you, remember old stories with you, or show up when things are going wrong.

Much of your deepest joy will come from the relationships you cultivate. The people you love. The people who love you. The friends who walk with you. The family you stay connected to. The conversations you remember years later. The long drives. The late night talks.

The unexpected kindness. The forgiveness given and received.

By the time you graduate, you may already know some of the people who will still be part of your life fifty years from now. You won’t know which ones yet. Some will drift away. Some will surprise you and stay.

And after graduation, you’ll meet more. Pay attention. One may become your spouse. Some will teach you. Some will test you. Some will need your help. Some may help save you from yourself.

The world will ask what you do. But life will eventually ask better questions.

Who do you love? Who can count on you? Who tells you the truth? Who do you encourage? Who do you forgive? Who have you helped carry a burden they couldn’t carry alone? What are you doing with your soul?

These questions will stay with you long after the name of your first employer has faded into the background.

Choose the school, the job, the trade, the service path, or the next assignment with as much wisdom as you can gather. Ask questions. Do research. Talk to people who have walked farther down the road.

Listen to your parents, even when you think they don’t fully understand the world you’re entering. They may not understand every tool or pressure you face, but they know more than you think about disappointment, responsibility, sacrifice, and love.

Then move.

Do the work in front of you. Show up on time (which is 15 minutes early). Tell the truth. Be easy to trust. Learn the tools. Respect the people. Ask better questions. Pay attention to what gives you energy and what drains it. Notice where your abilities meet someone else’s needs. Be willing to change direction without turning that change into a personal crisis.

A wise life is rarely built from one perfect decision made at eighteen or twenty-two. It’s built from thousands of smaller decisions made over time. Some will be mistakes and that’s part of the deal.

The goal isn’t to live without mistakes. It’s to tell the truth when they happen, learn what they have to teach, repair what you can, and keep walking with a little more knowledge than before.

Graduation is worth celebrating. You finished something difficult, and finishing should be honored. Enjoy the moment. Thank the people who helped you get here.

Then take a deep breath.

You don’t have to solve your whole life before the celebration is over. You won’t know every turn, every job, every friendship, every disappointment, or every joy waiting along the way.

You have enough to take the next step with care, humility, gratitude, and hope, trusting that life will teach you more as you walk.

Photo by Carson Vara on Unsplash

The Real Stakes

I spent an evening recently with a group of old friends. Some of us have known each other for nearly forty years.

We sat around an old poker table, laughing like no time had passed at all. The betting was fierce, of course. Quarter bets. Fifty-cent raises. The occasional dollar wager from the high rollers at the table.

As the cards moved around the table, so did the stories.

We talked about back surgeries and strange new ailments. About retirement and semi-retirement. After all the years of working, preparing, striving, building, and planning, some of us are finally approaching this new stage of life. Others are already there. We compared notes on life after full-time careers and our changing focus from building wealth to stewarding time.

We talked about the crazy new toys (tools) some of us have acquired since we were last together. Tractors, airplanes, boats, trailers, CNC machines, and 3D printers. The kinds of purchases that make complete sense when practicality and childhood fascination peacefully coexist.

We talked about trips around the world. Cruises through the Panama Canal. Journeys to India and South America, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia and Malaysia, Greece and the Canary Islands. Places we probably never imagined visiting when we first knew each other.

We shared tragic updates too. Losses. Wounds. Stories that carry real pain even when told calmly. The room would go quiet. Respectful. The kind of quiet that only comes when people trust each other enough to say the hard things out loud.

And then there were the stories of redemption. Recovery. Healing. The moments where life knocked someone down and, somehow, they found their footing again.

The conversation moved naturally between laughter and seriousness the way it often does when people have enough history together.

We traded lines like “You haven’t changed,” and “My God, you’ve gotten old.”

Both statements are somehow true at the same time.

Old friends see something unique in each other. They remember earlier versions of us that still exist somewhere underneath the gray hair, reading glasses, surgeries, accomplishments, disappointments, and miles traveled. Old friends carry evidence of our lives in our shared memories.

It’s comforting to realize we’ve all aged together. Nobody escaped it. We all crossed the years side by side, whether we saw each other often or not.

The poker game became a kind of metaphor for life. Checking. Raising. Calling. Bluffing a little. Winning a few. Losing a few. Staying in the game long enough to laugh about it afterward.

It’s probably a stretch to call the games we played “real poker.” The bets were small. The real stakes had nothing to do with money.

We left carrying fresh memories, renewed connections, and that warm sense that our lives are tied together across past, present, and future. Even after long gaps between gatherings, we can still sit down and pick up the conversation almost exactly where we left it.

Not everyone gets friendships that last thirty or forty years. That kind of shared history is one of life’s greatest treasures.

Sometimes it shows up around an old poker table. A deck of cards. Some unhealthy snacks. And decades of history that nobody can explain.

Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash

Advice for a 13-Year-Old

Our oldest grandson turned 13 this week. In honor of this auspicious occasion, here’s some advice from a grandpa’s perspective…

Turning 13 feels important because it is.

You’re not a little kid anymore, but you’re not grown either. You’re standing in that in-between place where life starts opening up in new ways. You begin to think more for yourself. You start noticing the world differently. You begin asking bigger questions.

Who am I? What am I good at? What do I want to do with my life?

All excellent questions, and you don’t need perfect answers yet. In fact, you’ll ask the same questions at 18, at 25, at 40, and again at 60. Life keeps moving and we keep growing. The answer you give today isn’t supposed to be your final answer.

So don’t panic if you don’t know exactly what you want to do with your life. Most people don’t.

Having your whole future mapped out right now isn’t the priority. Becoming the person who can handle that future is.

Hold on to your integrity.

Tell the truth. Keep your word. Do the right thing, especially when there’s nothing in it for you. That last part matters more than most people realize. It’s easy to do the right thing when someone’s keeping score. The real test is what you do when no one is.

Don’t trade your character for attention, approval, popularity, or convenience. A lot can be rebuilt in life. Trust is hard to rebuild once you break it.

Stay close to God.

You won’t understand everything all at once. Nobody does. But keep your heart turned toward Him. Pray. Ask for wisdom. Pay attention. Learn to trust that there’s more going on in life than whatever feels big in the moment. Your faith will steady you when your feelings don’t. It’ll remind you who you are when the world tries to define you by something smaller.

Stay in a service mindset.

Look beyond yourself. Learn to help. Learn to notice when someone needs encouragement. Learn to carry your share. Learn to be useful. Be someone people can count on.

A life built only around what do I want gets very small in a hurry. A life that asks how can I help or how can I add value grows deeper and more meaningful. You’ll find a lot of what matters in life while serving, building, learning, and staying faithful in ordinary things.

Work with everything you have, even when no one is watching.

Somewhere along the way our culture started treating hard work as just a means to an end, something we do to get paid or get ahead. But there’s a much older and better way to think about it.

Quality work builds character. It builds discipline. It builds something larger than the task in front of you. Every time you give full effort to something ordinary, you’re quietly shaping the excellent person you can be. That adds up in ways that are hard to see at 13 but impossible to miss at 30.

Half-effort becomes a habit just as easily as full effort does. The habits you build at 13, 14, and 15 will be the ones carrying you at 25 and 35.

Don’t wait for someone to be watching before you give your best. Work hard at school. Work hard at home. Learn to finish what you start. Learn to be corrected without falling apart. Learn to keep showing up even when it’s hard and nobody’s clapping.

None of this sounds flashy because it isn’t. A lot of what makes a strong life is built quietly.

You’ll fail at things. Do it anyway.

At some point, you’re going to try hard at something and still come up short. You’ll miss the cut. You’ll bomb a test you studied for. You’ll lose a game that matters. You’ll say something wrong at the worst moment. That’s part of being alive and actually trying. It says nothing about whether you’re good enough.

What happens after you fail is the part that defines you. You can let it pull you back, make you more careful, more afraid to try. Or you can let it teach you something and keep going.

Most of the people worth looking up to in life have a longer list of failures than you’d expect. They just didn’t stop.

Don’t be so afraid of failing that you stop reaching. And when you do fail, get back up, figure out what you can learn from it, and go again.

Don’t compare yourself to everyone else.

You’ll be tempted to measure your life against what everyone else seems to have, seem to be, or seems to be doing.

Comparison is a thief. It steals your happiness. It distracts your focus from your own path and wastes your attention on someone else’s highlight reel. The person you’re comparing yourself to is probably doing the same thing in a different direction.

Run your own race. You’re not behind. You’re not ahead. You’re exactly where you should be. The question isn’t why do they have what I don’t. It’s what am I going to do with what I’ve been given.

Stop assuming the world is against you.

This one is worth learning early so you don’t waste years that could have been spent building. When things go wrong, and they will, your first instinct will be to look for someone to blame. A teacher. A coach. An umpire. A parent. Your boss. The system. Sometimes that blame might even be partly true.

None of that matters. You don’t control what other people do. You control what you do. The moment you decide that your success or failure is mostly someone else’s responsibility, you hand over the most powerful thing you have. Your own effort and your own choices.

Work on what you can control. Improve your attitude. Improve your skills. Improve your effort. Stop waiting for circumstances to be fair before you try. Life isn’t always fair. The people who accomplish things don’t wait for it to be.

About your parents.

They really do want what’s best for you. That may be hard to believe sometimes. They won’t always explain things perfectly or get every decision right. They’re human, just like you. Beyond the rules, the questions, the concern, and the occasional frustration is something very simple. They want you to have a good life.

Try to remember that when you feel misunderstood. Talk to them. Listen to them. Let them help you.

And one day, if life takes you far away geographically, stay connected. Call home. Answer texts. Show up when you can. These relationships are worth more than most people realize when they’re young.

About your brothers and sisters.

Yes, they may annoy you. Yes, they may know exactly how to push your buttons. That’s part of the deal. But they’re also part of the very small group of people who know your whole story, where you came from, and what you’ve been through. They know parts of you the rest of the world never sees.

Be there for them. Don’t let small things turn into long separations. Give grace. Stay loyal. Repair things when you can. A strong family is one of life’s great blessings. Don’t treat it casually.

Pay attention to who you spend your time with.

We tend to become a version of the people we’re closest to. Not instantly, and not completely, but over time the people around us shape how we think, what we tolerate, what we aim for, and the person we grow into. Look at the five or ten people you spend the most time with and you’ll get a pretty honest picture of the direction you’re heading.

That doesn’t mean you have to be cold or calculating about friendship. But you should choose your close friends carefully. Find people who are honest with you, who push you to be better, who you actually respect. Be the kind of friend who does the same for them. And if you find yourself around people who consistently pull you toward things you know aren’t right, it’s okay to create some distance. Let them go. That’s not disloyalty. That’s wisdom.

Your words have more weight than you realize.

What you say about people, how you say it, and what you say behind their backs follows you longer than you’d think. At your age, a lot of the cruelty that happens between people happens through words. It often feels small in the moment, like just joking around or venting. But words land hard, and sometimes they leave marks that last a long time.

Be someone known for building people up more than tearing them down. Speak honestly but speak with care. Don’t traffic in gossip. Don’t pile on when someone’s already down. You won’t always get this right, but making it a habit to think before you speak is one of the best habits you can build right now.

Take care of your body. It affects everything else.

We only get one body. Take care of it as if your life depends on it (because it does).

This doesn’t need to be complicated. Sleep matters more than most teenagers believe it does. What you eat affects how you feel and how clearly you think.

Regular exercise probably isn’t a challenge at your age. But as you get older and take on more responsibilities, making this a priority will be difficult. Moving your body regularly, whether that’s a sport, working out, or just staying active, will serve you well for decades to come.

You’re building habits right now that will follow you into adulthood. The kids who learn to get enough sleep, stay reasonably active, and not wreck themselves with junk will have a real advantage over the ones who don’t. That gap grows over time.

Your body is going to carry you through a long life. Treat it accordingly.

One more thing.

You don’t need to impress everybody. You don’t need to look older than you are. You don’t need to rush into every version of growing up just because the world makes it look cool.

There’s no prize for becoming cynical early. There’s no prize for being hardened before your time.

Real strength tells the truth. Real strength keeps going. Real strength is teachable. Real strength can laugh, can apologize, can be trusted.

You don’t need to become everything right now. You just need to keep growing, one good choice at a time, one hard thing faced instead of avoided. One day at a time.

And when you don’t know exactly what comes next, go back to the basics. Stay honest. Stay close to God. Love your family. Help where you can. Work hard. Keep learning.

This path may not answer every question immediately, but it’ll keep carrying you toward a life that means something.

And that is a very good way to begin.

Photo by Arifur Rahman on Unsplash

Nothing Is Easy

Many of us have felt it. That quiet, persistent yearning for life to just settle down for a while.

We imagine a stretch of road where the strain lets up, the demands lighten, and we can move forward without so much weight on our shoulders. We tell ourselves that after enough years, enough lessons, enough work, and enough milestones, there ought to be a time when things begin to coast.

That hope is understandable. We carry a lot. We get tired. We get worn down.

But easy rarely waits for us around the bend. More often, what comes instead is something better.

Perspective. Wisdom. A clearer sense of what’s worth our energy and what’s worth leaving behind.

With time, we may carry life with more grace. We may stop pouring ourselves into things that never deserved that much from us. We may learn the wisdom of laying down false guilt, unnecessary fear, stale resentment, and the crushing expectations that come from trying to live someone else’s life.

A good bit of suffering comes from carrying weight we were never meant to bear.

Of course, knowing what to set down is its own kind of work. It takes honesty to name what we’ve been carrying needlessly. It takes courage to actually let it go.

But even after we set those things down, effort remains. That’s a feature, rather than a flaw, in life’s design.

Work requires our attention. Relationships ask for our patience. Growth brings discomfort. Purpose calls for sacrifice, and faith asks for trust.

Effort remains part of a life that’s awake and engaged.

Sometimes what we call easy is really just familiarity. We know the terrain. We know the language. We know how to move around in it. That can feel easier, but familiar things can still cost us. They can still ask for endurance, humility, steadiness, and resilience.

Maybe relief is the most honest word for what we’re seeking.

We want a little less pressure. A little less uncertainty. A little less disappointment. A little less striving. We want room to breathe.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Relief is human. Rest is holy. Recovery matters.

But relief differs from a life free of demands. And deep down, most of us would find such a life unsatisfying.

We may say we want to coast. We may fantasize about “easy street.” We may imagine how nice it would be if everything just ran smoothly for a while. But too much ease has a way of hollowing us out, leaving us restless, a little purposeless, quietly bored with ourselves.

We were made for engagement. We want to build, help, solve, shape, encourage, contribute, and grow. We want to know that our presence still counts for something.

That’s why a completely easy life, if such a thing existed, would probably disappoint us pretty quickly.

We were made for meaningful effort, and that’s where we find ourselves most alive.

The question, then, is less about whether life will ever become easy and more about whether we’re giving ourselves to things that build something in us and around us. Things connected to purpose, love, responsibility, service, growth, and calling.

Giving ourselves to the right things helps us stop feeling sorry for ourselves and start paying attention again. It steadies us for the chapter we’re in, rather than the imaginary one we hope will arrive.

As long as we’re here, there’ll be something in front of us asking for effort.

That’s our life inviting us in.

Photo by Nadya Spetnitskaya on Unsplash – Bread doesn’t rise without the work. Neither do we.

Six Questions at the End of the Day

For the next two weeks, I’ll be doing something new.

Marshall Goldsmith is encouraging people to ask themselves six questions every day. That’s the whole experiment.

Six questions. Asked at night. Answered honestly.

They all start the same way:

Did I do my best to…

The questions don’t ask what happened to me today. They ask what I did with today.

During his webinar introducing the experiment, Mr. Goldsmith referred to the Rigveda, an ancient poem from India that he described as being thousands of years old. He just mentioned it and moved on.

I had never heard of the Rigveda, so down the rabbit hole I went after his webinar ended.

The Rigveda is a collection of hymns. A lot of it is about everyday things. The sun rising. Fire. Breath. Life continuing. There’s a sense that daily life matters. That how we live each day counts.

People have been trying to figure out how to live a good life for a long time. Way before self-help and leadership books. Way before webinars and podcasts.

St. Ignatius of Loyola comes to mind. He developed something called the Daily Examen. It’s a review of the day. You look back. You notice where you were grateful. You notice where you fell short. You think about tomorrow.

Different times. Different traditions. Same basic ideas.

At the end of the day, pause and ask, “How did I live today?”

Goldsmith’s six questions fit right into that pattern.

Did I do my best to be happy today?

The question hits differently when the day is already over. I can see clearly whether I purposely enjoyed the day or just rushed through it.

Did I do my best to build positive relationships?

Now I’m thinking about the way I spoke to someone. Whether I listened. Whether I gave someone my full attention.

The questions are short. The reflections take some time.

Goldsmith describes happiness as “enjoyment with the process of life itself.” Happiness lives inside the day. It grows out of our engagement with what’s already in front of us.

The writers of the Rigveda seemed to understand that. Ignatius understood it too. They’re asking us to pay attention to our life and actively engage in it.

I’m only a few days into this experiment. Nothing dramatic has happened. No big breakthroughs.

But I know I’ll be answering these six questions later. I move through the day with more awareness. I catch myself sooner. I stay present a little longer. I think twice before reacting.

It’s a small shift…but small shifts repeated over time shape our lives.

Thousands of years have passed since the Rigveda was written. Centuries since Ignatius taught people to examine their day.

Our modern life looks very different, but the question remains the same.

How did I live today?

Here are Goldsmith’s six questions:

–Did I do my best to set clear goals today?

-Did I do my best to make progress towards my goals today?

-Did I do my best to find meaning today?

-Did I do my best to be happy today?

-Did I do my best to build positive relationships today?

-Did I do my best to be engaged today?

h/t – Marshall Goldsmith

Photo by Jonh Corner on Unsplash – looks like an awesome spot to think about these questions.

Living Inside History

Every generation believes it’s living through extraordinary change.

And in a way, every generation is right.

Economic strain, political division, conflict, and rapid technological change appear in different forms, but the underlying tension remains the same.

Ray Dalio describes what he calls the Big Cycle. The rise and decline of nations shaped by debt, money, internal division, and shifting global power. He would say we’re late in that cycle, marked by high debt, widening wealth gaps, and growing competition among world powers.

Harry Dent approaches history through demographics, studying population growth, and generational spending patterns. From his view, today’s economic strain reflects aging populations, slower growth, and the unwinding of decades of expansion.

Different perspectives. Similar conclusions.

Neither claim to predict the future with precision. Debt cycles, demographic waves, generational moods, technological revolutions, and geopolitical tensions move simultaneously. Understanding these forces and their patterns helps us recognize the currents. How we live within them is still our responsibility.

I remember the OPEC oil embargo of the 1970s and gas lines stretching for blocks. I was in elementary school as interest rates climbed above twenty percent. I watched the Reagan Revolution reshape economic thinking and bring supply-side theory into the mainstream.

I lived through the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the taking of US hostages, and the subsequent spread of militant extremism across parts of the Muslim world over the next four decades. I watched an airplane strike the World Trade Center in real time.

I grew up under the shadow of the Cold War, when nuclear conflict felt possible at any moment. I saw the optimism that followed the fall of the Soviet Union and then watched China open to the world after decades of isolation. I remember the theories about how expanding capitalism in China might soften their communist approach to governing.

I witnessed the savings and loan collapse, multiple stock market crashes, the Great Recession, and a global pandemic that disrupted economies, institutions, and families alike. I watched how strongly governments grasp control when certainty disappears.

I saw personal computers and then the internet transform daily life, followed by the digital economy, smartphones, social media, and now artificial intelligence reshaping work itself.

I can think of countless other historical events that have happened in the span of one life. Each moment felt unprecedented. Each reshaped the world, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively.

And yet, life continued.

When history is written, it focuses almost entirely on macro events. The narratives are dominated by wars, collapses, elections, revolutions, and markets. What rarely appears are the countless individual lives unfolding quietly alongside these events.

History does not record families eating dinner together during times of high inflation. Nor does it record weddings that took place during recessions or children born during wars. It overlooks the laughter that survived fear and the quiet courage required to just keep going.

But these individual experiences of life form the definition of humanity.

For every name preserved in textbooks, millions of people were doing what people have always done. They worked. They loved. They raised children. They cared for neighbors. They hoped tomorrow might be a little better than today.

Macro forces shape conditions. They influence opportunity and may narrow our options. They may, unfortunately, end our life or the lives of someone we love. But they don’t define a life.

Inside every macro upheaval exists our “micro” life. The life lived within the headlines rather than dictated by them.

The world may determine interest rates. It does not decide whether we act with kindness. It may influence careers, but it does not control our integrity. It may introduce hardship, but it does not determine how we respond.

Our response is where freedom still lives.

Viktor Frankl understood this more clearly than almost anyone. After enduring unimaginable suffering in Nazi concentration camps, he observed that nearly all external freedoms can be taken from a person. One freedom remains intact. The ability to choose one’s attitude and response to circumstances.

Events may constrain us. They may demand adaptation. They will never own our human spirit.

In my office, I have a wall filled with photographs. Family gatherings. Wedding days. Trips taken together. Beautiful places. Ordinary moments that became lasting memories.

When I step back and look at this wall, patterns appear.

We worked hard.

We made time for one another.

We traveled together.

We celebrated milestones.

We were living out our hopes and dreams, and we still are.

My wall has no charts or financial forecasts. No macro trend lines. But it tells the story of what matters most.

None of these moments waited for ideal conditions. They unfolded alongside inflation, recessions, political change, and uncertainty. The photographs capture lives shaped by ordinary but important choices made amid extraordinary times.

As we traveled, we met families across many countries. Different customs. Different faiths. Different governments. Yet everywhere we went, the hopes sounded familiar. Parents wanting the best for their children. Families striving for opportunity. Communities longing to contribute and belong.

The differences emphasized by the world shrink quickly when people speak about those they love.

Human aspirations remain remarkably consistent.

History changes its outward form. The heart changes very little.

You will live through upheavals of your own. Some will be frightening. Some will be unfair. Some will test your trust in institutions or leaders.

Remember this.

You are not responsible for controlling history. You are responsible for how you live inside it.

You will not choose the history that surrounds you. You will choose the values you carry through it.

You choose how you treat people.

You choose how to adapt.

You choose how you show up for your family.

You choose whether uncertainty hardens you or deepens your compassion.

You choose whether fear leads or faith steadies you.

These are your choices. Always.

Humanity endures because ordinary people continue to build their lives amid uncertainty. They love, they work, they fail, they adapt, and they hope, even while larger forces move around them.

While empires rise and fall, families persist.

That is the quiet march you belong to. Rarely captured by historians yet carried forward by generations.

History happens around you.

Life happens within you.

Live your life well. Love deeply. Work honestly. Stay flexible. Hold your faith. Care for one another.

If you do that, you will live a meaningful life regardless of when you were born.

As I was finishing this post, I found these quotes from George Bernard Shaw. The words come from two different writings of his from the early 1900’s. Together they express something important about what it means to live well within whatever history hands us.

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. “

“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatsoever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ for me. It is a sort of splendid torch, which I have got hold of for the moment; and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

h/t – Atkins Bookshelf

Photo by Federico Giampieri on Unsplash

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You can also listen to the Grandpa Bob Encouraging Leadership Podcast, where I share short reflections on leadership, life, and learning.

Thanks for reading!