dad blog – Subjects to change

The cool Dad..

I’m not lying to you when I tell you that my favorite television show is a cartoon on Disney Junior called Bluey. The show is about a family of Australian blue heeler dogs and their adventures in raising two small children. First, off it’s actually an Australian TV show that Disney picked up for viewing in America and it reminds me of a cleaned-up version of the Simpsons. It’s seriously funny but always does a great job of passing along a valuable life lesson in the end.

Bandit Heeller is precisely the kind of dad I want to be when I grow. Equal parts goofball that never really grew up and is willing to play silly games and get into mischief while also being able to pepper in solid parenting, encouragement, and life lesson along the way to make sure they know they are loved and prepared to be the best possible versions of themselves they can be. I know your thinking to yourself seriously Brian a cartoon on Disney junior can be that deep or funny, My child likes Fancy Nancy or paw patrol and I’ve never once thought that any part of those shows was enjoyable. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and give it a watch. The first two stories are epically fun and the last one called Shadowlands is an excellent lesson in life.

In my little more than 5 years as a dad and the life lessons learned from Bandit aka Dad on bluey, I’ve decided I want to be the cool dad for my kids. Not the cool dad that lets the kids drink and have parties at the house or the one that lets them run around like crazy whackado’s because coming down on your kids and disciplining them is just not the cool thing to do.

I want to be the dad that can take his kids rock climbing and bring their friends along and show off my abilities so they can brag about how strong their dad is. I want to be the dad that goes surfing with his kids and gets barrelled with all their friends watching. I want to be the house where the kids want to come and hang out because we’ve built an awesome backyard filled with things to eat and play with. I want to be the dad that laughs and jokes and has a good time so they want me to be around.

Because if they want me around and I get invited to do those things listed above I’m there to help, supervise and set an example, and maybe just maybe if I’m lucky figure out how to pass along a little life lesson in there while everyone’s having a great time. I know a time will come when they won’t want to hang out with me all the time but hopefully trying to be the cool dad will push that a couple more years into the future. And with that kind of time, I might be able to pass along just enough wisdom to keep them out of trouble and give them the ability to make choices filled with integrity when there isn’t an adult insight.

Like Bandit says in that first episode about making it too fun, ” Sorry, squirts. It’s a hard one to get right” but I figure if I’m there, we’re laughing and having a good time I must be doing an okay job.

Call to Action

if you’ve got kids under the age of 7 or so watch some episodes of bluey with them. If you don’t it’s fine I watched that entire youtube video before typing this and everyone’s asleep in my house. It’s high-quality family entertainment, and everyone is sure to laugh. These are our favorites ones. The Dump, The pool, Shadowlands, and the Fairy Spell.
Find a hobby that you and your kid can do together. I think it’s best if it’s something that you are both new to, this way you can grow and develop together and watch each other’s development. Might I suggest rock climbing/bouldering.

Be Nice or Else…

Mike Tyson might not be the guy you would naturally lean-to for deep and profound insight but he does offer up at least one amazing pearl of wisdom that may be the most profound statement of the last 15 years.

“Social media made y’all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.”

I’m not sure about you but this rings true loud and clear to me. Think about it would you say those mean and nasty things to a real person face to face on the street? I seriously doubt it, I know I’ve said some things on social media platforms in the past that I certainly would never say out loud. It certainly is easy to punch away at the keypad and get those aggressive unfounded and downright mean posts out in the world for everyone to see just how impressive and witty your prose is.

If I’ve said it once on here I’ve said it at least a dozen times the internet is a magical place of learning if you search it out. Sure there is a significant amount of weeds in that field of wisdom but that surely doesn’t mean we torch the field or contribute to the problem by casting a few more weed seeds to it. I’m not going to change the world with this little post but my hope is that the next time you start being a keyboard warrior set on leaving a path of destruction in your wake ask yourself this. What good is this going to do? Have I offered up some kind of factual information? or is it even worth it to post this, and how long or upset am I going to get when I start this battle?

Call to action

How good does it feel when someone gives you a genuine compliment? I love it, it brings a smile to my face and can help pull me through the day. Why can’t you be that person who finds ways to say or do something nice for somebody. It doesn’t have to be holding the door open or helping an old lady cross the street it could be just as simple as sending someone a message on social media offering up encouragement and a brief explanation on how you are enjoying what they’re doing. (This feels like I’m fishing for compliments here, I’ll take them if you have them but be sure to spread the wealth”

Any way we slice it this life is difficult and we don’t need to pile more crap on either people’s plates with our keystrokes. Lighten the load with some kind words and you’ll find that giving feels just as good as receiving.

Music of your formative years…

I think we can all safely agree that the music that came out from the time that you were 13 to 20 years old was the greatest music of all time. Everything that came before it was old and outdated and everything after was just garbage. I know I feel this way about the music that came out in the late ‘90s and early 2000s and I’m sure that whatever time frame you lived those formative years in has a special place in your heart for that music as well.

For me, that music was punk rock and its offshoots. Bands like pennywise and perhaps most importantly U2 was the soundtrack of that time frame for me. If you are familiar with both of those bands you may be thinking to yourself that’s two very different sides of what could be considered punk rock music. And to this, I would say that you are very correct in your musical assessment of what the instrumentals sound like. However, you couldn’t be more wrong when it comes to the lyrical comparison of the wordsmiths who crafted the anthems of my childhood. Songs about standing up for what you believe in, questioning authority, and the unwavering dedication to remaining a unique individual and not assimilating into the crowd and the eventual grind of adulthood.

I loved these songs when I was a teenager but I wasn’t quite sure why, they were often loud, fast, and aggressive. I sang the lyrics but I don’t think I ever gave them much thought as to what their meaning was, I just knew I liked them and they sounded really good when they were played at full volume.

A lot of things have changed in my life over the past 20ish years but those favorite songs of my formative years are still up there at the top of my playlists and they sound even better cranked up now that I’ve come to realize the message of the lyrics I had been singing all those years. I’m proud of myself that I still live the message in those songs I love. I stand up for what I believe in, I question authority and politely dissent when necessary, and one thing is for damn sure I haven’t grown up and changed into the adult I never wanted to become. Sure I wear a shirt and tie for work, well I used to when I wasn’t working from home. But guess what? That tie is a bowtie because I’ll play along with your rules but I surely am not going to dress up like everyone else to fit in with the crowd. Think about the last minute of killing in the name of by rage against the machine if you’re wondering where the inspiration for the bowtie came from

Those songs you loved as a kid, I’m sure you’re still listening to them as well maybe you even crank them up as well. Do you still live the lyrics, or have you forgotten the message that you used to scream at the top of your lungs? We’re you a punk rocker or a hippie that went to all of the shows and swore you would never sell out to the adult crowd and assimilate into the norm? If the answer is yes or at least most of the time I’m very proud of you for staying true to the message. If not I might suggest googling the lyrics to that song that means so much to you and reevaluate your life choices.

Like a lot of things I write about the theme isn’t always the message I’m trying to get across. I fully understand that music and lyrics are not the overbearing character witness of our lives but they helped form our social and ethical DNA. Do you still embrace those things that you once believed in or are you living a life that the 20-year-old version of yourself would be disappointed in?

Ogres, Onions and Fathers Day…

One of my favorite movie quotes of all times comes from the original Shrek movie, its funny but has some deep-seeded wisdom lurking under the surface. Shrek and Donkey are walking through a garden discussing why Shrek didn’t torment a village, Shrek’s response is Ogres are a lot like onions, they have layers.

Ogres and people are very different, at least that’s what I’ve been able to infer from the movies, I’ve never met one in real life before. But just like onions and ogres, we do have a lot of layers. I’d be willing to bet that I could put my self in at least 2 dozen categories of groups I belong to. Like a surfer, aspiring farmer, runner, cook, husband, and father. Of all of my layers, those last two are at the core of the onion for me. They are why I go to work, eat healthily, exercise, and try to be the best version of myself I can be. I hope that I am better at those now then I was a year ago and that future me is better then I am today.

I am very grateful to have both my parents in our lives as they are fantastic parents and even better grandparents. They are a literal encyclopedia Britannica of wisdom on everything from parenting to building an outdoor shower. I’m 37 and I still need my parents for that wisdom and perhaps most importantly to watch our kids a few days a week so we don’t completely lose our minds as a result of working from home with an almost 2-year-old.

The most important thing I will do with my life is to be the gentle guiding influence that will hopefully turn my kids into kind and successful members of society as they grow and mature throughout their lives.

The best way I’ve come up with so far on how to accomplish that goal is to lead through example and take care of myself mentally and physically so I can be around for along time.

I want to take the next few minutes to implore you on the importance of taking care of yourself so we can be great fathers for many more decades to come.

If you haven’t been to the doctor to get a physical because your young and invisible in the past 5 years you need to stop and make that happen. In the spirit of brutal honesty, I belonged to that camp until about a year ago. I went, it didn’t hurt and I felt grateful walking out of there after getting my lab results knowing that nothing unforeseen hadn’t been lurking under the surface.
Take an inventory of what you eat this week, maybe even write it down. If you see something that surprises you next Sunday, pick that one thing and try to eat half as much the following week and in half again the following week. I truly believe that quitting cold turkey is bad for long term success.
Pick a couple of bodyweight exercises like push-ups, squats, lunges, dips, crunches, planks you get the picture. Now pick a reasonable number of reps and days a week you will commit to putting in the work and start TODAY!!!

I promise you that if you put these three things into practice this year that you will be running circles around your kids come, fathers, day 2021.

You are Here…

How many imaginary finish lines do you think we cross in our life? I bet its in the hundred of thousands, who knows though that number could be a gross exaggeration or a massive underestimate. Think about all the races across the school yard when you were a little kid. If having an almost 5 year old son has taught me one thing it is that everything can and probably should be a race with a finish line.

Sure the vast majority of finish lines are insignificant in our lives but what about the major ones like graduating from school, getting a job, getting married, buying a house or having kids. All of these are huge goals that can be way off in the horizon and take years and years of hard work and dedication to achieve. But what happens when we get there to the “finish Line” of that race in our life? From my experience a small amount of happiness floods in and then the reality that maybe all of that work leading up-to the finish line was just a precursor of what was really in store for us.

I’ve been kicking this idea around in my head for a while and it was really cemented while listening to one of my favorite podcasts the 3 of 7 project. https://3of7project.com/podcast/ Chadd the host and Ian Thomas recounted their adventure in an ultra race called bob big back yard. The race format is pretty simple, run 4.16667 miles within 60 minutes and if you do so you can run the next loop when it starts on the top of the hour. There is no set distance for the race it ends when only 1 person is left running. In the 2018 race the last person running logged just over 283 miles or 68 hours of running.

I don’t want to give to much away as I really think the podcast is amazing and you should totally listen to it. but with out a bit of a spoiler I cant finish this blog post so with that being said… Ian had a goal distance in mind that he wanted to achieve and with that out on the horizon although difficult at times it was a motivator to keep moving towards it. When that self imposed finish line came happiness arose but the desire to keep going waned and he threw in the towel. Chadd the ultimate motivator tells Ian ” Don’t die in the chair” we go out like warriors on the battle field. And before the next top of the hour the two are off running again for yet another loop.

Ian ran a really, really long way that day. But I wonder how far he could have ran if all the wind wasn’t let out of his sails when he crossed the “finish line” and then I thought about all the times I could have gone further but the finish line got in the way of what I was truly capable of.

THERE IS NO FINISH LINE

who says there has to be an end to any chapter in our lives. why does the learning have to stop when we graduate, why can’t the high school track star keep running and competing ? Why do we have to grow up and be adults all the time?

I know I’ve wasted time in my life thinking that I had arrived at my destination to only realize several years later that I was still standing in the same place wondering how all those people got so far in front of me. Maybe there finish line was further out in the distance or they learned before I had that there really wasn’t one. When you stand still at your destination thinking you’ve arrived you might as well be going backwards.

Call to Action.

I’m sure there’s something that you are curious to learn about right now and boy oh boy are you in luck. Access to information has never been this easy or cheap to access. I’m currently learning about organic gardening practices as well as creating a food forrests. I haven’t stepped into a classroom or paid tuition, I’ve learned a ton through the magic of youtube. Just be careful that the cute cat videos don’t suck you in to deep.

Stagger you goals. I have a goal for my trail running, its a pretty big one and its going to take a few more years to get there. In the mean time I’m going to come up with what the next step is so I’m not standing at the end of the race wondering whats next. When that happens it’s easy to take the foot off the gas and go into idle.

Go out and challenge yourself to something that you don’t think your capable of right now. Hitting the register button is often times the hardest part. Go out and train, prepare your self mentally and go out their and execute the mission. When you achieve that goal it will light a fire inside of you as you realize that there’s a lot more in the tank then you ever would have imagined.

This is really cliche but life is truly a journey and not a destination. It’s a long hard road filled with tons of work and hopefully a healthy smattering of happiness and contentment along the way. Whenever I feel like quiting I think of these words from Dr. Martin Luther King

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”