9,10,12,14 going on 10,11,13,15

Well, todays my birthday. Not that it really makes a huge difference in the greater scope of things. Although now my kids feel the need for a few days to call me "Old Man" and my wife get's to giggle that I'm on the "downhill side of thirty" now. So what big plans do I have for the day? Not a whole lot to tell you the truth. We went out to dinner with my Dad who was out visiting last night, and I'll probably go out to lunch today witht the guys from the office, but that's really about it. (yeah, the ole' healthy eating things been put on hold for 24 hours.) I think about when I was a kid, or any of us were kids for that matter, and remember what birthdays were like. Remember how excited we would get? I know that for me I was counting days till the next one, telling everyone I was NOT 10 I was "10 and eight months", and I'll be driving before you know it... well you get the point. I can't remember when it stopped, the exceitment that is, can you? It wasn't sixteen, because your still in high school and can't vote or anything yet so you have eighteen to look forward to. It wasn't eighteen, because you still have twenty-one to look forward to. (Come on, really, everyone looks forward to 21 right?). And I can't even say the twenty-one was the age it stopped, because then you have really good birthday parties to look forward to. I guess for me the age was twenty-five. Why 25 you ask? What happened, you suddenly matured in the blink of an eye and all things childish and immature such as birthdays and parties and the like lost their fascination? I think any one that knew me at twenty-five will earnestly tell you I did not suddenly mature, or that I have yet for that matter. No, I think it was twenty-five because that's the age when my oldest son started realizing that he had birthdays, and that they were good, great even, and he was now not just three, but three going on four. At that time, my focus shifted, the important birthdays were not mine anymore, they were my childrens. After a few more years of reflection I can see that that's the reason why I looked forward to birthdays so much when I was a kid. Sure, presents were always great, but your parents and your family now focused on you. You were the star. You picked the dinner, you got the songs, and gifts. Whatever the tradition, you were at the center of it. Now that I am in "their shoes" I can see how much effort my parents put into my birthdays, and understand why. It was purely selfish; they got greater joy out of watching their kids birthdays than watching their own. Now so do I. So today I'm not just 36, I'm 9,10,12,14 going on 10,11,13,15.
Happy Birthday P~

Happiness

Everyday, every one of us is searching for something. It’s something that often seems just around the corner. We just know that it’s something we can “get”. We almost have it, or we know we will when ___, you fill in the blank. What is it that consumes so much of our lives? What is this elusive thing that we all crave?
Happiness. When was the last time that you really felt happy? Not just alright, or okay but really happy? I guess before I can go much further I need to explain what I mean.
Most of the time, I am pretty happy with my life. I have a beautiful wife, great kids, and live in a nice home. But is that happiness? For that matter what is happiness? Is it a long term situation or one that comes and goes like the wind? I have tried to define happiness many times in my life. As a child I thought happiness was getting what I wanted when I wanted it. Later, in High School, I thought happiness would be making my own decisions and charting my own course. Yet later in life I thought happiness was something that came from what I had; cars, job, money, fun. Looking back on it, the one common thread I see for myself was the constant association of happiness with some thing “out there”, something that I didn’t have or didn’t have enough of.
I guess to define happiness one would need to define what happiness is not. Rather a Zen perspective I know, but bear with me. Let’s assume that happiness is not something that’s conveyed through acquisitions. We can also accept as fact that happiness is not a constant state of mind, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation would we? The dictionary defines “unhappy” as 1) Sad or sorrowful; and 2) Not satisfied; displeased or discontented. Either way the unhappiness or state of being “not happy” as I see it is from not accepting the current situation. I was not a great student in school; I wasn’t a dunce mind you, but I had an aversion to homework and this landed me in summer school more than once. During one summer of pre-algebra, I was lucky enough to have a teacher who imparted to me the phrase that I have referred to more times than any other. "Happiness is being where you are." This simple thought has over time grown on me and become very much one of my core beliefs. When you are wanting, wishing, hoping or just thinking about the things you want that you don't have, or the places you want to be that you are not at, you are not being where you are. When you live in the future, or dwell on the past, you are not being where you are. These are, for me anyway, the times that I am the most discontent or unhappy. I try to not indulge myself in this thinking too often, but hey, I ain't perfect. Remember that thought though, and hold it in your mind on those times when you can feel the blues creeping in. We all have some blessings in our lives. Whether that is health, family, passion, or profession. Happiness is being where you are. Hold dear each moment you have, and when it passes, enjoy the next.
Namaste.
P~

Inspiring

Tonight I had a good friend of mine call unexpectedly and invite me to a lecture being given by David McCullough. This friend of mine obviously gets me as much as I thought he did, one of the few that do.
The speaker is not someone that I am familiar with, but was speaking primarily on American History. He is a pulitzer prize winning author and historian and well worth the time to listen to.
He brought up a lot of things that really made sense to me. Talking about our founding fathers and the struggles that they went through to get us to the point where we are now really made me reflect. We have things so easy for us now that we take for granted all of the sacrifices that have been made for us. Not just by our founding fathers, but by others in our lives. My own father grew up very modestly. My Grandfather had only the basic education, but knew the keys to success and he gifted them to his children. My dad worked hard, continued his education and set goals for himself. He learned to love and to share through fights and truces with his six siblings. His sacrifice, and his lessons allowed my life to be substantially easier that his. I appreciate this enormously. However, as illustrated by poor choices early in my adult life I failed to receive the lessons that he had. This was not for any lack of trying on my dads part. God knows we still tease him about the lectures. I believe the lack of sacrifice had not given me the opportunity to build the desire to push farther. I'm lucky to have weathered my trials later in life and come out for the better.
The lecture tonight brought me to think about our nation and its history of advancement. Our founders suffered tyrants and won their freedom, their children fought with each other and with others to protect our freedoms. They lived through famine, disease and economic depression. Today we've reaped the benefit of our fathers lessons and hard work. Our lives are simple and clean. I fear sometimes that we are doomed to make similar mistakes as a country that I made as a young man. I'll continue to try to make myself better, and give my children a sense of where they come from. It is our duty to our nation and it's future to make sure that we have given a sense of perspective and duty to our children. They will need it for their future. If they forget, or worse yet never learn about the sacrifices before this time, they are destined to learn them the hard way.

That's all for tonight.
P~

Children ??

I’ve been thinking today about my children. They are truly a blessing in my life. I know a few couples that have decided definitively not to have children, and some others that “plan” to but never seem to feel like they’re ready for them. I feel the need to pontificate on this topic, bear with me.
As I’ve said, I feel blessed to be able to have the children that I have. I currently have a very good relationship with three of my boys; my divorce from the mother of my oldest son has presented some significant road blocks to having one with him, but we do the best that we can. For the record, the road blocks are not all her fault. As his father there are a lot of things I could, or perhaps should, have done better. I point this out for the sole purpose of tempering my point of view. I can come off a bit “know it allish”.
I am somewhat torn on the idea of people not wanting to have children at all. One part of me thinks, “What’s wrong with you? How could you not want to?” while the other part argues back with,” You know, if someone doesn’t really want kids it’s better for them to not have any, than to do it out of some societal obligation.” I guess this is the point where I have to ask the follow up question “what is the reason for not wanting to have them?” I think it really just comes down to just three possible answers;

• I don’t like kids and I don’t want them
• I don’t want kids because they’ll get in the way of my goals, my social life
and the things I want to do
• I feel that the world/earth is in trouble and I can’t see bringing children into a place like this.

The first argument I can deal with. If someone just doesn’t like kids, I guess they have the right to choose not to bring any into the world. However, I think many people that don’t like them have either been the repeated victims of neglectful parents (i.e. the screaming kid in a restaurant, kids running up and down the movie theater isles, etc.) or really fall into the second group. This argument is propbably becoming more and more common these days, as so many kids are being raised by a day care, or Mtv and never get a chance to learn good social habits.
The second argument I think is the best reason to not have any children; it is honest and takes a good bit of guts to admit. Again, I think most fall into this category but don’t have the gumption to admit it.
Now the third argument; this is the one I balk at. If we accept the premise that the world/earth is in trouble; whether that be from impending drastic climate change, wars, or geo-political unrest (BTW I don’t subscribe to any of these, but to play Advocatus diaboli…) then I would argue that we have a duty to try to change that course. I’ll deal with this in the next installment of this thread.
-To Be Continued
P~

Some weekends are made to do nothing

You know that's really not true, at least not the way it sounds. I didn't get a whole lot of chores done this weekend, but I really did do quite a lot.
We took the kids to the skateboard park twice. (I only skated once. I had to make sure I kept A~ company the first time since I dragged her along against her will.) We had a great picnic in a park down the road where the kids could play, and we tossed the ball around, ate a great spread of picnic food, and got our first good shade of pink for the year!
That night we watched a movie together and then crashed for the night, all so tired from a weekend of "nothing".
I think if someone asked, "Is parenting hard", I could say "There's 'nothing' to it.". Because the days of "nothing", are the best days of all. I have to remember this on more weekends. My kids will grow up one day, and will look back at the times we had together. Will they remember the busy full weekends working around the house, or running around doing errands? Nope; they'll remember weekends where there was "nothing" to do but enjoy our time together.
Enjoy your time. see you soon!
P~