The face of success

How does anyone navigate life without my Dad? That’s what I’ve been asking myself the most lately. I know some very successful people, happy people who have found their way in life, somehow, but I’m not sure how they did it on their own, because for me I can’t imagine trying to navigate this minefield of adulthood without my Dad. Oh sure, they didn’t do it on their own, no one actually succeeds in a vacuum, we all need support. I just don’t know how anyone succeeds without my Dad in their corner.

The first step toward success, in today’s world, is building your network, of friends, colleagues and partners. Think in terms of building a path, each friend, acquaintance or new person is a brick or marker on this road, they are an opportunity to grow, and you are the same to them. It's a beautiful give and take. Throughout my life my Dad has shared his dadisms, "most people do a C job", "there’s what is and what ought to be, they’re not the same" (see how I came to naming this blog) and "know your end game". These are the ones that have meant the most to me, perhaps because they are so resonant for my needs. I know when I was young it seemed like I wasn’t listening, but I guess I was. Now as a parent I find myself with my own "isms" for my child. It’s okay that it doesn’t seem like he’s listening, because I know he is. This is but one step on that path. My Dad placed the first brick for me.

Over the last few months, I and my friends have been brought closer together through hardship, from horrible work conditions to navigating business school, and we find ourselves leaning on each other, and hundreds of miles away my Dad is there, every step of the way. My road is built with stepping stones of my Dad’s wisdom, shared with my network so that all of our paths are stronger. A friend who has never met my Dad, a manager at a fortune 100 company, found himself inspiring a team of senior managers and vice presidents with my Dad’s advice... Know your end game. His project was daunting, the hurdles were huge, and he kept his eye on the goal. He let the small details, which added no value, slide. With my Dad’s mantra in his head, relayed through me, my friend achieved his difficult goal, ahead of schedule and under budget; he achieved this success with minimal friction by keeping his sites on the goal.

A dear friend was fired for no good reason. She saw it coming and called me the night before. I relayed some of my Dad’s advice, "say what you need and then be quite" and "know your end game". When the horrible meeting happened, she sat quietly with these two mantras replaying over and over in her head. Once she was out of the heat, she was in a better position to understand her options.

These are just two of many stories of how my Dad is there for me and my friends, my network, my path; but mostly these are the stories that make me wonder how anyone navigates life without my Dad.

In the midst of a confusing career moment, I shared with my Dad my impressions of success. I told him about a business person with many more dollars in her bank account, than I’ve ever seen. My Dad always shines a light on what’s important. "Is she successful?", he would ask me. She has money, but is that the metric for measuring success? We all want enough money for a comfortable life and to provide for our family, but my Dad is clear and he pushes me, is that the measure of success? Look at her family, look at her friendships, is she happy? Her only metric for success is the money in her bank account. Anyone can make money, but not everyone can be a friend. When all is said and done in our lives, when we take our final breath on this earth, our bank accounts will not matter. The people we’ve touched, the children we’ve raised, the family we’ve loved, will be our true metric of success. Spending time together, enjoying the gifts of those in our lives and being able to enjoy those gifts, those are the metrics of success my Dad points too.

What is the face of success? Our friends and family loving us in return.

Thanks Dad!

The gift of a dead fish

I’m always amazed at how well kids deal with death. A friend called today, she told me that one of their foster kittens had just died. Since my son was on the way to her house for a play date with her little girl, she wanted to know if it was alright to talk about it around my boy. How would he take it? Does it concern me? I have such thoughtful friends. But it was fine as my boy is all too familiar with death. And, while she was also concerned about her daughter, and how she would take it, it turns out she was not distraught at all. She had two other foster kittens, their two dogs and a friend to play with. But that’s the mind of a six year old. They haven’t turned the corner on their consciousness yet. They haven’t become people of the world, they don’t see the larger picture, and this is good.

I read once that around the time a child turns seven or eight they begin to see themselves as part of the world, instead of the center of it. This is when they begin to understand empathy in a truly deep way, not just as a pattern developed by consciences parents. This growth, these concepts are actually felt now within their own psyche. It’s when death does become profound.

So, before a child turns seven or eight, before they have the weight of the world on their shoulders we have a great opportunity to help ease the realities of life. After all, isn’t that what childhood is for? To prepare us to face the world as adults?

When my boy and I went to the carnival a few weeks ago and he won two goldfish it was truly a gift. Not the fish, not a pet for him to be responsible for, although that’s nice too, at least until the thing is floating belly up, as goldfish are apt to do… and quickly, but it’s that belly up fish that was actually the gift.

Goldfish are a great introduction to death. They are pets, beloved in a feed them and watch them swim kind of way. But they are not cuddly, like a kitten, or loving like a grandparent and these are deaths that children will have to face at some point, if we’re lucky and they outlive us. Ideally, a child would loose a fish first, hopefully during these early years when their brains have not fathomed the depth of death yet and they can move on. My son’s reaction to his fish dying was to plead for the privilege of dumping it in the toilet and getting to flush.

Once the dead fish has been dealt with, if you can call the joy of flushing “dealing with it” we’re ready for the cat. Let’s hope we don’t have to say good bye to cat soon, but when we do, we’ll have that fish experience. And after that, it’s the older people we love, hoping that’s years away, hoping that there were enough fish and cats and distant others to help up along the way. If all goes according to this idea we’ll have that something to point at and say, “hey you got through that remember? You are alright now, you’ll be alright again.” It’s a gradual thing, a gradual understanding that we can face the tough realities of life, that we are strong and we’ll be okay. Even when these realities don’t come at us as planned, even when we loose someone dear, young and close too soon, these experiences remind us that we’ll find a way. And it all starts with a dead fish.

Kindergarten Ideal

Contemplating life between reality and the ideal has me comparing situations for their potential placement. For example, cooking, for me, lives well within the world of the ideal. I have time, space and creative energy all to myself and then I get to share the fruits of this pleasure with my loved one. And, as if that wasn’t enough, it’s okay to ask if they liked it. But getting myself to the ideal state of cooking means I have to navigate the world of reality, known as menu planning, a task best left to those who enjoy relating to a mime in a box, and then grocery shopping, a small stopping point in between. I know that most people do not like grocery shopping, but for me it’s a moment, well an hour, of unbridled creativity as I make my way through the veggies, fruits, cheeses, breads and other fresh ingredients to sort out what I want to make or the variations of what I’ve already planned. But having to do that with child in tow, and then there is the checkout, loading and driving, not to mention having to put everything away, and by the end I’m usually feeling pretty harried.

One of my favorite contemplations has become kindergarten. My son comes home with tales of his life in another world. He lives in a place where you cannot tell secrets, you are not allowed to judge each other by superficial characteristics and more to the point, you are expected to accept each other for your differences.

Recently a new girl moved to my son’s school and joined his class. His teacher prepared the students to welcome the newcomer, a personal guide for the new child was assigned and everyone was a twitter with excitement. When she arrived, the children were enamored with her. There was some curiosity for where she came from, and everyone was excited to know her. When we arrived at school on her first morning, in the middle of our Spring semester, even the other parents made a nice showing. There was a circle of mom’s talking with the new girl’s mother and everyone seemed to be enjoying getting to know someone new. I wonder how differently that would play out in sixth grade or tenth.

The most striking “life in the ideal” scenario that plays out everyday in my son’s class is that his teacher has coached the children that there is no such thing as perfect. She is so diligent about this message that anytime anyone says that something is perfect my son will retort, “there’s no such thing as perfect.” Yes, he will say this in the store when we find a warm jacket, after a haircut and even at the dinner table, to my chagrin. It took me a while, but now I say that his homework is “excellent!”, as is my cooking.

Sitting at my desk each morning, faced with the day’s fires ablaze and waiting for my attention, bookings, articles and communications, I contemplate this idea that there is no perfect. I wonder what my perfectionist of a boss would think if I told her that there is no perfect.

Children, lucky children, those in my small town and hopefully most children, live within the world of the ideal. Not to say that their lives are perfect. I can attest to that every time I have to drive my son to his dad’s house and leave him to be put to bed by someone else, to sleep through the night without my midnight kisses, to be bathed, fed and read to by someone other than his mother. But children are resilient, they seem to be able to live with tragedy or “less than” with great happiness and hope. They find ways to cope and integrate these less than ideal realities as life and go on in their world of the ideal. I’m sure some of this “strength” to tarry on is because they are bombarded with these messages of life as ideal, these messages that you don’t tell secrets in front of friends because it will hurt their feelings, that going to a new school will be okay and you’ll be accepted because it’s the right thing, that there is no perfect and failure is simply a springboard to learn from. They receive and willingly accept these messages that life is that black and white, and at least for now, at least in kindergartens it is.

As adults, most people know that telling secrets is hurtful, but they also think they can’t be heard whispering. When you move, or rather, start a new job, you usually have to prove yourself before people will accept you. And while there really isn’t any such thing as perfect, you’d better plead your case that your work breaks that rule if you want to stay ahead of the curve. Of course, in this last example, a lesson from my dad comes to mind. He has always told me that most people do C jobs, so if you do your best it will surly be an A, since most bosses have only seen C jobs. But that’s for another essay.

In the end, I have to admit that I tell my son to stay a kid as long as he can. I tell him what I wish the grown ups in my life had told me. You’re only a kid for a short time and then you’re an adult for a very long time. This is a big message and needs to be repeated. You are an adult for a long time… and there’s a lot of paperwork involved.