Today, I watched a video that not only made me cry, but that also made think hard about the finite time I have been given to be a daddy to Harrison. He is not yet two years of age, and already I have sensed myself taking our time together for granted.
I have been impatient when I should have been patient. I have sent him away when I should have scooped him into my arms. I have raised my voice when I should have spoken with loving authority. I have allowed the little things in life to be little things when I should be cherishing every moment.
How quickly we become dulled to the miracles of God.
Today’s post is one to help me remember the things I need to remember, and I ask for parents of any age (dads especially) to be a part of this. Please take a moment to write a comment telling about something in your parenting to which you wish you would have paid more attention, or something you always try to keep in mind as you raise your children. What things seemed like a big deal that really weren’t? What things seemed trivial that were actually more important than you realized? What’s one thing you would do differently? What would you do the same?
Currently, I’m working as a third grade teacher at a local school district. It’s a good job. I am fortunate to have this opportunity right now because the education industry is in a bit of upheaval — especially with deepening state budget cuts. I’m reasonably successful as a teacher, have the blessing of an alarmingly short commute, and enjoy an uncommon amount of days off. Despite the positives, I know in my heart that this job is just a stepping stone to something else. I just wish I knew what that “something else” was.
I have had people tell me that they think that I am “meant” to teach — that this is the job to which God has called me. I’m not so sure. While I don’t wake up dreading the workday ahead, I also don’t wake up with a passion for what I do. Don’t get me wrong, I work hard and try my best each day, I just don’t love it in the core of my being. To gripe about my current situation would be to wallow in ungratefulness, but to claim deep contentedness would be lying.
In truth, I sometimes look around at others and begin to envy their careers. My brother-in-law is the Director of Communications for a U.S. State Senator. My friend Justin is a physician who is a few months short of completing his residency. My high school girlfriend’s “little” sister is doing mission work in Myanmar with her husband.
It’s never really been the money or the status that I envy, but the purpose. Each seems to ooze a purposefulness that I tend to lack. My hope is that, as I work the jobs between now and “what I’m meant to do”, I will do so with an open mind and continually expand my toolkit of knowledge and experience.
Here are some of the things I’ve already learned from the jobs I have held since college:
What about you? What keys to success did you learn from stepping-stone jobs? Did you have a particular job that you hated when you did it, but now look back and see the value it added to your life experience?
Since the beginning of time, people have been discussing, debating, and warring over issues of religion and politics. Taken independently, each subject can create a great deal of fervor and heated banter, but an extra heaping of woe to the one who tries to talk about both simultaneously. Recently, I have been in discussions with a friend of mine (someone who opposes my views as it happens), and I wanted to put some of my thoughts in writing to see how others react to the convergence of religion and politics.
Some might say that politics and religion should always stay separated, but I find that to be a thoughtless position. Since my religion is the central catalyst in forming my worldview, how can someone ask me to separate my understanding of the world from my vote? Do I ask the secular atheist to forget about their worldview before casting a vote? To me, the idea of religion and politics staying separate is silly. On a number of hot-button issues, my religious faith (along with what I consider simple common sense) have helped to form many of my political convictions. Though they are seen as contentious issues, many are pretty black-and-white in my mind.
Capital Punishment - I am 100% in favor of capital punishment. Some might challenge me by saying that all life is sacred and that my support of society killing another human being, for any reason, must mean that I don’t truly value life. On the contrary, because I value innocent human life so much, I support a system that requires the most heinous murderers to pay the ultimate price for their deeds — the forfeit of their own life.
Abortion - I support a woman’s right to choose, and when she chooses to sleep with someone and gets pregnant, I don’t think a quick-fix abortion is an acceptable remedy. The idea that a woman has a right to do what she wants with her body is fine by me, but once you get pregnant, you’re dealing with someone else’s body. Just because it’s growing inside you, that doesn’t mean it is you. 100% of babies turn out to be someone different than the woman who carried it. I want each child to have the opportunity to live, because you never know which unwanted baby might be the next Mother Theresa.
Admittedly, however, sometimes I struggle with the crossroads between religion and politics. I freely admit that there are times when my stance on a political issue is difficult to justify through my faith. When people challenge me on some of these issues, I have to admit uneasiness. Here are three random political issues that give me pause:
War - War is hell, and the idea of supporting it makes me a bit uneasy. I don’t think its easy for our troops, and I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable killing another person. Unfortunately, the other end of the spectrum — sitting down and having a friendly discussion with people who hate us — is laughable. If I’m at home when someone breaks in with a weapon, no amount of Constant Comment tea will help me succeed in protecting my family. This reasoning seems even more persuasive on an international level. Am I uneasy about the taking of human life? Yes. Do I think that God supports war? Honestly, I’m not sure either way. What I do know is that war has been the catalyst through which many of the world’s greatest evils have been thwarted. My tendency is to believe that, in rare cases, military intervention is the only answer we have as a nation.
Enhanced Interrogation Techniques - This is one that came up in a discussion last week. From a political standpoint, I have no issues with water boarding terrorist masterminds like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — I think its valuable in helping to save lives. I fully support sleep deprivation and other techniques that interfere with or disrupt a person’s rhythm and balance. I’m against physical torture (like drilling a hole through someones skull). Oddly enough, from a religious perspective, I’m a little more uneasy with this issue than I am with war. Do I like coercive methods that make a person feel like he is drowning? No. But there is no doubting that this technique — done to a handful of men who are the personification evil — has saved thousands of innocent lives. In this case, I lean slightly more toward an “end justifies the means” stance, but I’d be lying if I said that my faith didn’t give me pause.
Homosexuality - My belief about homosexuality is not where my struggle lies; I simply have a hard time knowing exactly how to handle the rise of the gay movement in our society. I believe that our nation gives mentally healthy adults the right to do just about anything he or she wants, as long as it doesn’t injure or corrupt others. What I have a hard time with is knowing what to do when I see what used to be considered an “alternative lifestyle” given the same value as traditional man/woman relationships. Do I want our government to oppress gays? No. But I have a hard time with the thought that our government is being asked to take the stance that heterosexual marriages are no different than homosexual ones. While I support the freedom of lifestyle, I cannot support the idea that they are the same. My compassion for gay people doesn’t trump what I consider to be the best organism for a healthy society — a healthy traditional family.
What are your thoughts? Do you have similar religio-political battles that you deal with? If you are of a secular persuasion, do you have similar struggles when you try to combine your political and irreligious beliefs?
This weekend, Heidi and I took Harrison to Disneyland for the first time. We never planned on taking him as a one-year-old, but when the grandparents graciously offer to pay for your hotel and admission, how can you say no? We had a great deal of fun on this trip (though I recommend not going over Labor Day weekend), but I must admit that I was disappointed in some of the changes I noticed at the Disneyland Resort.
For decades, the Walt Disney Company has been the model for other businesses who want to create a wow experience for customers. Their theme parks have been the pinnacle of showmanship, and they have a long history of going the distance to create magical memories. The core of this magic has always rested in the quality of their employees — more commonly called “cast members”. In Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service, the Disney Institute quotes past President and CEO Michael Eisner as saying,
“Nothing so visibly defines Disney’s parks as the warmth and commitment of our cast members over the years, and the appreciation that guests feel for the way they are treated.”
Unfortunately for Disney, our most recent visit was marked by a very apparent lack of “warmth and commitment” from cast members of all stripes.
Instead of attentive, cheerful parking attendants, I saw only disinterested, miserable people who could barely muster up enough enthusiasm to point to our parking space. I get more energy from the lot attendants at Cardinal’s games.
As we boarded the tram, I expected to hear the cheerful voice of the tram operator welcoming me to the happiest place on earth. Instead, I hear a barely intelligible list of rules barked out over the on-board speakers without the slightest hint of inflection. This is showmanship? Honestly, that experience was no more remarkable than listening to the guy running the DC Metro trains.
As we approached the gates, our bags are checked by the same impersonal robots who can’t even form a smile as they rifle through my son’s diaper bag. No, “Is this his first visit?” conversation, just a grunt and we’re waved through. Were these guys trained by the TSA?
The ticket-takers were not any more personable. The magical sound that the booth makes as I scanned my ticket was tarnished by the thirty-year-old booth operator named Marco who mumbles a depressed “next” to the rest of the line. Where’s the attention to detail?
Perhaps most appalling was the lack of showmanship I saw from the cast members inside the park. Most of the ride operators might as well have been Six Flags employees. The vast majority of them did not make any effort to create an experience — they just did their job. Oftentimes, they focused their attention on other cast members and chatted with each other as family after family passed them by. I even had a girl working the Fantasmic show interrupt me asking for help so that she could tell another passing cast member that she “got in trouble for talking to friends at work”.
Instead of coming to work to create WOW experiences, the cast members I saw this past weekend came for the sole purpose of punching a clock — and it showed.
I doubt seriously that anyone associated with the Disney Company will read this post, but if by some chance someone does, let me say this: I love Disney’s long and rich history of creating WOW experiences, and I want that drive to create magic to live on as my kids take their kids to your park thirty years from now. What I have seen in my last few visits is an obvious decline in the very heart and soul that sets Disney apart from other vacation destinations. If things don’t improve, then you will be relegated to the status of just another theme park — something that Walt Disney never wanted. I hope to see more effort from your cast members in the future. They will make or break your reputation.
What about you? Have you seen a decline in customer service at any of the Disney theme parks?
In a recent issue of Men’s Health magazine, I read a list they published called “23 Life Lessons to Teach Your Kids”. It had a wide variety of simple-but-sensible gems of advice for dads who want to pass a meaningful legacy on to their children. Number four on the list challenged fathers to give their kids “[a] team to love. It’s a durable pleasure, best passed from father to child.”
I agree, and can’t wait to take Harrison to his first Cardinals game.
Take a moment to read the complete list of 23 Life Lessons to Teach Your Kids — good reading for dads.
Sometimes things in life take you by complete surprise. I wasn’t expecting today to bring me an experience that I’ll never forget — I never thought that something so seemingly insignificant could bring me to tears. But it did.
I am not someone who cries easily (I rarely even tear up), but this evening as my little boy began to drift off to sleep in my arms, the tears began to well up in my eyes. I wasn’t crying because he was sick or injured, I wasn’t crying because I had to leave him for a week-long business trip, I wasn’t even crying because I was thinking about the emotional day we brought him home. It sounds so silly to say it, but I cried because he was there with me at that moment, and I was there with him. We just were. Together.
I’m sitting here now wondering how I can explain my feelings in more sensical terms, but I can’t. I’m not even sure why I felt the need to blog about it. I just want to remember how I felt tonight.
I love you Harrison.
Dear CNN, I am writing this letter to inform you that penguins are not people, and to let you know that running news stories about penguins and talking about them as if they were the Kowalskis next door is assinine. Furthermore, trying to compare a pair of male Magellanic Penguins to a gay human couple in an attempt to show how natural it is to be gay is a bit of a slap in the face to homosexuals. Besides, the analogy totally backfired. Can we get back to the real news, please?
Just over three months ago, I decided to give Twitter a try and created an account for myself. From the very beginning, I have been skeptical about whether or not Twitter could add value to my life or enhance my leadership influence, and participating in the twitterverse still has not convinced me.
Michael Hyatt, the CEO of Christian book publisher Thomas Nelson, Inc. is the one who ultimately convinced me to give Twitter a try. His blog is one of the best places to find great posts on leadership, social media, customer service, publishing, personal productivity, and about a dozen other important topics (go there now and subscribe to his posts, you won’t regret it). Mr. Hyatt is a strong believer in Twitter’s ability to build influence and expand leadership, and he’s an avid Twitterer.
Aside from following a few friends and family members, I specifically chose to follow Mr. Hyatt’s Twitter feed so that I could get a clearer insight into what makes him a great leader. Unfortunately, I have grown to realize that the things he tweets don’t impact me at anywhere near the level that his blogs do. Sure, some of his tweets link to his great blog posts, but I already subscribe to his RSS feed, so the Twitter link is redundant. On occasion, he’ll post a link to an article that I find interesting, and its fun to hear him talk about his morning runs, but few of those tweets challenge me beyond the exact moment I read them.
And its definitely not just him.
I follow a number of people who I consider big-time influencers, but I generally get the same reaction to their tweets. Their influence on me exists more in their books, articles, and blog posts, not in their tweets. Does that make sense? I think it’s the inherent lack of depth combined with having to comb through a collection of too many pointless messages that continues to turn me off. I realize that this post has a “me, me, me” timbre to it, but when it comes right down to it, should I invest my time in something that isn’t directly challenging me and making me better?
I’m not going to call it quits with Twitter, and I will continue to read the tweets of Mr. Hyatt and all the other people I currently follow. I’ll even continue making tweets of my own. While I’m not currently prepared to say that Twitter is pointless, I am confessing that, after more than three months, I’m still not a convert.
Am I still missing something? Do you agree or disagree with my take on Twitter’s value?
Even though I have never used their services before, I decided to try Monster.com to help me find a new job. I still don’t have a job, and the only thing Monster.com has managed to do for me is flood my inbox with junk mail. No leads, no call-backs from businesses where I submitted a resume, just a pile of digital garbage.
I’m not talking about a few junk emails here and there, I’m talking about 15-20 emails a day. Some are your typical fare — enlarge-your-manhood, please-her-all-night-long sort of stuff — but most are junk mail disguised as employment opportunities. These make me the most furious.
In two months I have received zero actual job leads from Monster.com and I am not a happy customer. If you are a person in search of a job, I highly recommend that you move along and don’t waste your time with Monster. If you are a business in search of employees, don’t tarnish your company’s image be aligning yourself with this worthless organization.
I’m going now to delete my account. Thanks for nothing Monster.com.
