E is for Foundation.

I remember my dad telling me when I was younger that the proper way to build a house is to pour the foundation and let it sit for a year.  The neighborhood I grew up in was only ⅓ developed when my family moved there so I always had the great fortune to go explore half built houses with my dad.  

Mom and Dad are going to love the ball pit addition.

 

It was always amazing to walk through the space that would normally be the front door, into the skeleton of an unfinished house. Walking on the subflooring and looking up straight into what would later be the attic gave me an odd sense of uneasiness. Breathing in the  smell of fresh cut lumber mixed with dirt and the vague hint of concrete dust floating in the air always dried my mouth out. It was hard as a young kid to picture what the finished product of the house would look like when all you could see was space, frames, wires, and ducts.  

My dad would take me through the house and explain everything that was happening. “This wire is a power line. They will have an outlet here.  This line is for plumbing, we are standing in the bathroom.  That pipe there is for cold water and probably going to run to the sink in the kitchen.”

I couldn’t picture any of that.  

I would always wonder what  the family that would move into that place would be like. Are they going to be happy or sad? Will it be filled with jokes and laughter at a dinner table?  Will they have a huge TVor a dog? Will the kids all get their own rooms? Would the kids get a TV in their room?

This will be my bathroom attached to my closet. Your stuff can go in the closet under the basement stairs.

Of course it’s really hard to see the big picture of something by looking at the small details as a kid.   Shoot it’s hard as an adult to sit and think about the nuts and bolts of life and plan them according to an outcome that you want.  

Now that I’m a homeowner, and have to fix things on my own, I’m more inclined to think about cracks in walls, proper insulation and wondering if the house has a basement.  The one thing I always think about whenever I enter a house though is the foundation.  Was it poured and left to settle in the newly disturbed soil? Or was the construction rushed leaving the the foundation to settle at different rates in different spots?

Taking the time to have a proper foundation won’t prevent things from going wrong, but a solid foundation can certainly make life a lot easier in the long run.  Without the proper foundation for whatever it is you’re going to struggle through it.  

I remember a few years ago I ran the Indy Mini Marathon.  13.1 miles.  I trained for 4 months for it.  I finished in an 1:45. I’m proud of that.  I found out a buddy of mine ran it too and hadn’t trained one day for it.  Took him almost 4 hours to finish.  

Crossed the line… COUNT IT!

Hey at least he finished right? Good for him.  It took him a lot longer, and I’m sure the next day he felt all 4 months of my pain that I trained away.  In my house we would call that a Darling Husband Job.  

Dar·lingˈ- Hus·band – Job

därliNG/  ˈhəzbənd/ jäb/

Adjective

1. The act of jumping into a task with little to no prior knowledge or prep which leads to a longer and more expensive solution than anticipated.

“Honey I found the leak in the tube. The guy at the hardware store said all I have to do is cut the tube here, and then put these fittings on. I’m pretty sure I can fix this.”

Always wear your safety gear for fixing the sink.

I don’t mind doing a DH job on something around the house. It gives me a chance to be handy and learn something new about home ownership.   There are a million things I find myself wishing weren’t a DH job though.  I think “if only I had started this years ago and had the stuck with it, this would be so much easier now.”  

If only I had stayed true to my vow to do 50 push-ups every day, I’d be really strong now.  Made that promise to myself in junior high.  18 years later, I’d be doing push-ups like Gaston.  If only I had started reading everyday when I was in elementary school, most of my books wouldn’t need pictures in them now.  If only…. Well you get the idea.  If I had only started something then, I’d be great at it now.

I don’t have the ability to go back and say “GET IT TOGETHER! Do the hard work now and in 18 years your future self won’t have to worry about getting started, he will already have laid the foundation for being strong and smart and awesome.”

I do have today though. And so do you. This is the day that we buck up and put on our big boy pants.  This is the day we do push-ups until our arms shake. Today we pick up that book and read something. Today we pick up the pen and write something.   Today we pick that one thing that has been sitting our minds and take the time to do it.  Don’t say there isn’t time. There is if you make it.

Today we walk through the bare bones of our own house, picture what we want that  place to be, and start building the foundation for it.  It is time to stop being boys who wish for things to be easy, and our chance to be men who recognize weakness and change it to greatness.  

One of my favorite quotes growing up as an athlete was “Pain is weakness leaving the body.”  I thought that mostly was meant for muscles.  It applies to everything in my life now. It is a mindset now.  I have to put forth a tremendous amount of effort now to be a fearless man.  

Be this kind of Ted. Not this kind

 

It takes effort to think of others and put family first.  It takes effort to get off the couch and into the yard. It takes a lot of effort to do push-ups, pull-ups and sit-ups. It takes effort to pray on your own, and as a family daily. It takes effort to better yourself mentally, physically and spiritually.

This is my idea of a modern fearless man.  A man that can take care of himself and his family mentally physically and spiritually.  One that thirsts for ways to make himself and everyone around him better.  One that isn’t afraid to learn new things, make mistakes, and get dirty. A man that recognizes his ability to lead and isn’t afraid to give that position up.  Something we as men are constantly being told we must surrender.  

We have ended up with guys who make their wives put down the dog because they “can’t handle something that sad” because we as men have been convinced that our wives are the absolute leaders of the family and it’s ok to be treated and act like another child. That’s why so many people say to dads now, “Oh you must be babysitting while mommy is away!”  Men aren’t even expected to parent anymore.  

 

If men aren’t even expected to actually parent anymore, there’s no surprise that they have no problem not getting mother’s day gifts for their wives, or going out with their buddies every night while the Mrs. stays home with the 4 kids.  

At Home Dad.org

This is what we are told a modern man looks like.  A passive part of the family that wives are in charge of.  We aren’t even expected to put any effort into our world outside of work.

Effort is the foundation of what it takes to be a true modern man. It’s not worth doing if you aren’t going to put in the effort, and the reward for that effort will always be great than doing nothing at all. Effort is certainly the foundation of what it takes to be a husband.  And even though I have no kids, I’m going to go ahead and assume that this foundation will be necessary when I do.  

When the effort isn’t made to build a house correctly, cracks begin to form in the walls, doors begin to jam, leaks form spring from the foundation soon after it’s built. Over time every house settles, and we all have to do maintenance. If you’re not making the effort to maintain your house and home, it’ll only be a matter of time before it all comes crumbling down.

Take charge of  your weakness. Turn it into a greatness.  Start small, with a little perseverance we can make that small fix into a habit, and that habit into a virtue.  

Consider this your first brick.

 

 

You do you, I’ll do me.

“You do you. I’ll do me.” “You’re a grown ass man.” “I’ll be here if you want to join.” “I’m good, I’ll pass.” I find myself saying that more and more to people. It’s really turning into a mantra now.  I find it to be the case because as I get older, and I have grown closer to my wife, I’ve started to change my definition of happy.  

For a long time I was happy being the tag along. The go with the flow guy. I was always up for whatever, and people always asked me to go and do whatever it was. I could only be that guy with other people around though. I had played that roll for so long that it left me at odds with myself when I was alone. I didn’t really know how to do it.

Bad Luck Brian strikes again….

Over the past few years I’ve somewhat flipped the switch. It’s made some people uncomfortable that I’m not always willing to go with their flow. I’m no longer the down for whatever anyone else wants to do guy.  I have to tell you I like not being that guy anymore. There is a freedom I have now that my comfort isn’t tied to anyone other than me and my wife.

It’s not a perfect system, and it’s not as rigid as it might seem.  I am still pretty laid back and willing to go with the flow. I have, however, learned to take control of that flow and choose what part of it I want to affect me and leave the rest. It has helped me develop a new confidence in myself.  

Me in every job interview. 

I am still, and will be for a long time, in the process of developing this quiet confidence. That inner strength that I can draw from. I owe that solely to a strong constant practice of introspection. The practice has been fueled by tragic events, by an unwavering encouragement from Alle, and a strong reliance on my faith.

This introspection has been critical for me being able to find my principles. It has helped me define the core values that I want to live my life by.  It has given me the confidence to be a better husband. To work to be a better husband. To take a stand, not only for myself, but for my wife and one day our children. Who doesn’t want to be a man to look up to?

 

It’s also been a scathing process to really challenge the way I see myself.  I have had to make hard choices. I have had to cut people right out of my life. The drama filled people. The people that are stuck in a negative or childlike frame of mind. The people that just refuse to grow up. The people who get down in the mud and try to pull everyone down with them.

Tuck and roll Timmy!!

One of the major side effects of this new found attitude I have been trying to cultivate over the past few years has been compassion.  Being able to be compassionate for other people and not make it about me.  “I don’t believe in God.” A friend of mine said that to me recently, and there’s no way I was going to respond “Well you do you man.” He needed someone to listen and I had no problem listening. If I had not had the conviction in my faith that I have been working on, I don’t know how I would have reacted to a statement like that. Who knows, maybe I would have agreed.

What I do know is that the more I look into my own principles, my own reliance, the more I’m able to stand up for myself and my beliefs. Not in an argumentative defensive way, but in a way that allows me to speak with authority. It has created some really in depth conversations about life and being a husband. It has helped me see where others are weak, and where they are strong. It’s given me an opportunity to share my world with others and glean knowledge from them that I can use.

No wonder he’s man’s best friend. 

We live in a gray world. Nothing is as black and white as we’d like it to be.  Without core values to live by, it becomes easy to be gray in a gray world.  I don’t mind taking my stance on things and finding my anchors in the definite black and whites.  That’s how I can stay in the flow but not be a part of it.  

There’s a black and white truthfulness about the phrase “You do you, I’ll do me.” It’s an attitude, that is invigorating and empowering. I can only control myself and my actions. To those that are in my direct sphere of influence, I can do my best to please and make happy, but I can’t control their happiness, more importantly they can’t control mine.

There is prayer that I find myself saying quite often. I am asking for help in accepting things that can’t be changed, changing things that can be, and wisdom to know the difference.  It’s a simple prayer. Most know it as the Serenity Prayer. I encourage you when you face a difficult situation, or feel like you might be letting someone down because you have chosen to do something you wanted to do, to say this prayer. You do you the best you know how.  I’ll do me to the best of my ability.  

 

 

 

I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

“I need a thing” he said to me “I’m in a rut and I need a thing.”  I offered a suggestion, but it was of no interest to him.  “Yea… You need a thing.” Was all I could say after that.  How many times have I been there? In that same seat, feeling the same way.  “Everything is going well for me, but I don’t have a thing. I go to work, I come home, I eat, I sleep. That’s all I do and I’m bored.” You are lying to me/yourself if you try to tell me you’ve never been here, and it likely isn’t the first or the last time.

This world we are in is full of things to do.  I would say at this moment we as a society have more things to do with our spare time and idle hands than ever before in history, but so many of us are wandering aimlessly outside of our duties to work and family.  It’s a hard thing to realize that you don’t have something to occupy your time. Something that grips your mental, emotional, and spiritual faculties.  In this world having a “thing” that can fulfil all three is vitally important not just to people in general, but men especially.  We need a purpose men. A higher calling. A challenge. That is something that every great man has recognized and striven for.

 

So what’s keeping us from striving to be better?  It took me 29 years to come to the conclusion that “if it doesn’t make me better than I was yesterday it’s not worth doing.” Why? There are so many things out there to do in my spare time, why doesn’t anything sound good or interesting. For starters, most of the time consuming things out there are not exactly beneficial for our minds, bodies, or souls. Social Media was the beginning of a new time wasting age. It can consume people. We have also seen the greatness that can be had when Social Media is used for something good like human rights revolutions. More often than not it’s used to see what celeb looks terrible in their bathing suit, and that is what most of us use it for.

I’m reading Hero Tales from American History written by Teddy Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge. 5 chapters in and it’s easy to tell you that the relating theme between each story is that the person they are talking about stays busy and outside.  They have an adventurous spirit and work tirelessly at what they are doing, which 200 years ago was basically farming, surveying the land, fighting in wars, and fighting Indians. All those things are very different time occupiers than what we have today. I don’t know what the men of the past would have done to waste time. I bet it involved gambling and drinking, or maybe sleeping, or rolling that wooden hoop down the street with a stick. I don’t know! One thing that is cross generational, that supersedes time, great men didn’t waste time or effort. Everything they did had purpose, even if it wasn’t clear at first, and especially if it wasn’t easy. This is a quote from the first chapter in an explanation of why they wrote this book.

Its purpose, as you know better than any one else, is to tell in simple fashion the story of some Americans who showed that they knew how to live and how to die; who proved their truth by their endeavor; and who joined to the stern and manly qualities which are essential to the well being of a masterful race the virtues of gentleness, of patriotism, and of lofty adherence to an ideal.

If you asked me “DH do you adhere to an ideal of stern and manly qualities?”  My first thought would be “that sounds exhausting.”  Wouldn’t that be great to say “yes” with confidence? We live in different times now, where all the land has been mapped, and there is no new frontier to conquer. The vast majority of us don’t have plots of land to till and farms to plant, and no Farmville doesn’t count.  We don’t face death behind every tree from beast or man. Our lives are remarkably easier than compared to 200 years ago. We have been given the gift of enormous amounts of free time.  

 

When I look back at the times where I was wishing for something to do, I realize i was really searching for something to define me, something that I could tell everyone about much like a Vegan or a Marathoner do. I can easily recognize now that I didn’t have an ideal. I didn’t have a lofty ideal as Teddy would say. Over the past few years I have learned that unless what I am doing has a point to it, then I am not going to be happy doing it. Now all I have to do is find the point or the ideal….  I know for a fact that’s why I wandered around doing and trying so many “things.” So if you are finding yourself wishing you had a thing to define you, an ideal to live by, you better start doing some introspection and figure out what you want to define you.  Nothing is just going to magically happen to you, you have to find an ideal, set  goals and start working towards it.

This is so easy to say and so difficult to do.  I have lived by many ideals and at times by none. I have found things that have caused great personal growth, and other things that have wasted years of my life. I have declared “This is my ideal!” And done nothing to support that.  Words without action are just that. Good intentions and nice feelings only go as far as the action that defines them.  So if you are reading this thinking “I have an ideal, but I don’t have a thing!” You have reached the time where you need to start setting goals. Start small with the one easy question to answer. “What can I do today to live by my ideal?”  Without that action, we are all just telling ourselves something that sounds nice to feel nice. It means nothing. It’s faith without works.

This goal or ideal that you choose can be anything you want it to be. My advice is to do everything, then narrow it down to what really interests you. I know plenty of people who have their “thing” be sports. Playing, watching, stats, following your favorite team etc etc. we all know what that looks like. I’m happy for them.  Don’t get me wrong I love my Colts and fantasy football. Ask my wife, we rearrange our whole week during the season. But if my goal is to live by an ideal and have my “thing” be something that achieves that goal, fantasy football and sports ain’t cuttin’ it.

Those things are great to know about, and they are entertaining and distracting. They provide plenty for me to talk to other guys about around the water cooler or a beer.  I really do enjoy lots of things that don’t line up with an ideal. Cigars, bourbon, football, fantasy football, March Madness the list of things I like goes on forever. These personal joys are extremely important for us to continue to enjoy life.  I also know that my interests change, and what I think of as entertaining now will likely change when the wind blows.. That’s why I’m glad none of these things are my “thing.” I’m not saying anything that doesn’t directly relate to a lofty ideal is bad. Infact, those things are very good. I just don’t want people to think that the Fantasy Football and March Madness define who I am.  

We all have a higher calling than what we think.  We are all born for greatness. Each one of us is born for sainthood.  It’s our job as men to open our ears to that call, to meditate on it in prayer, and to find the courage to follow it. We are called to something hard, because nothing easy was ever worth doing.  The easy path is easy because many walk it.  Don’t just be one of the many.  

Be the guy that can rattle off stats of all the college teams. Be the guy that plays video games all day. Be the guy that reads or the guy that writes. Be the gardener or the golfer or the pool player.  Shoot, do what I do and do all those things!.  But at some level be the better guy, the guy with an ideal, the one that focuses on self improvement of mind, body, and soul.  Do the things that will enrich you. You’ll find that a bit of self reflection and work will not only make you more fulfilled, but it will change your relationships.  The idea of the American Hero is no different than it was 200 years ago, the only thing that has changed is how we achieve that. Our frontier to conquer now is in the home.   Find your own path, just make sure that it’s a path that makes you a better man and a better husband. Answer the call for greatness.  The world is full of the entitled sloths who just want things to be better and aren’t willing to work to make them better.  Don’t be the average guy, we have enough of them.