To Be Significant

My Dad is a significant man. He shows up, he listens, he cares, he loves, his time is never his, always is there for others, in short he matters. He has had a profound and significant affect on my life then under his watchcare and guidance, and now as his shadow of legacy in family and example of time deposits in others is ever before me. I love the man and not a day passes where I do not think of him or ask myself in situations what would he do, or how would he react.

A family man of 40 years, a man who cared about a son, and two daughters enough to spend his weekends with us and his wife. Looking back when you are of age is a sweet thing and a venomous trek as well. I regret some of the things I said to him...I understand now the term wisdom years later, and "because he said so" matters to me, and shaped me in countless ways foreign to me then. I guess he loved me in spite of myself, he cared no matter what I said, and he knew that his time and his guidance were seeds that needed time to nurture and grow. He understood that storms would come and that the sprout would be challenged, and challenge him, yet he had confidence in who he was and what he said, and I do to. In short time spent with my Dad shaped me as a man and as a nomad in this world.

My Dad made me feel like I mattered, that I had gifts and talents, that I was good at things I did, and that I could accomplish great things. He and my Mother encouraged me and taught me to have confidence and to work hard at anything you set out to do, and your God given gifts would come out. Together they layed a foundation of Godly confidence in who we were and more importantly who's we were. They mattered and they knew it would matter when life didn't request their sons permission to change course.

At times in my life I have felt significant to others. I thought that my time mattered, that my investment in their lives were deposits with lifelong returns, that trust and transparency with one another was present. When you feel like you are needed and that you make a difference, and that you are planting seeds daily, weekly and monthly in others that you choose to have close, you really feel like you matter. So much so at times you get lost in what you are doing and who you are doing it for that you begin to feel deserving, you begin to feel unduly important, and a sort of arrogant cloud in who you think you are hangs over you.

Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever found that maybe you are really only important if you are important in the eyes of those you are busy doing for? I have, and that cloud that followed began to let loose, and then the storms came. Thats when life became the instructor and I was deserving of nothing but question, and disbelief in who I perceived myself to be in the eyes of the others at times.

In sales there is a phrase that says " Value added, is only really value added if the customer perceives it to be." All the executives and management sitting in meetings discussing how great a product is, and why it matters, and will matter and make a consumer purchase it...really doesn't matter if it hits the market and the customer does'nt see the benefit to them. This is not only true for business, but for relationships, and for life.

I am thankful I had such wonderful teachers as my parents that taught me what true DVA- documented value advantage...is.

Motorcycles

Yah, motorcycles are dangerous, and most choose not to ride for that reason and comment to the negative on those that do.

As for me...LIFE is dangerous and for that reason I ride. I like that element, I need it, thats a challenge that builds. I embrace the risk, and in doing so gain perspectives few will ever know through the sun, wind, and rain.

Turns out I'm a child.

I am thankful for my job and the life I have. The dotted lines on highways that I travel give birth to thought and provide the aquafir of water I pump from to cleanse my spirit.

Today as I crossed through Sulphur Springs TX a stop sign on a blacktop on the highway in NE TX, I looked in the rearview mirror. For a moment I saw a man with slightly greying hair, few more wrinkles, tired eyes...in short I saw an older man. I thought about how I could live with the ghost of my former athletic, younger self the rest of my life, and work to get back to that...knowing I never will, or I could choose to be the child that I am.

You see no matter how old...20...25...30...40...50's...60...70's...80...if I make 90's...HE tells me Im a child. I'm sticking with that, I choose to be surrounded by the promise that I am a child of His, no matter how old, what circumstance, what choices,what consequences, what happens to me in life.

Yah...Im good, I like that, no matter what the world tells me I am. I am a child, and dont tell me or my FATHER...any different.