The challenge with this strategy is that I am no cowboy. What is second nature to seemingly all Texans, including everyone in my wife’s family, is completely foreign to me. If necessary, I am 100% sure that every one of my in-laws – including my 4 year old nephew – could hunt, shoot, gut, skin, filet, cook, stuff and mount any wild animal, on their own, in order to feed their family. I, on the other hand, would quickly become a vegetarian if I was responsible for anything other than ordering from a menu. Thankfully, I have been blessed with wonderful in-laws who have been very accepting of my alternative lifestyle. That being said, I am fairly confident I saw a little part of my father-in-law die inside when he took me hunting and my weapon of choice was a pair of binoculars.

This past week, while on vacation with Andrea’s family in Breckenridge, I was presented with an opportunity to show the more rugged, cowboy side of me. Ever eager to impress, I jumped at the chance. As a group, we were going horseback riding, and I was excited about getting a chance to show how I could handle a horse with the best of ‘em. After all, I actually had some experience riding horses. Well, “riding horses” might be a bit of an exaggeration. Once, as a child I had ridden a crotchety, old Shetland pony we had somehow inherited. The ride didn’t last long as she almost immediately walked under a low branch to effectively scrape me off of her, but I was on for at least the requisite 8 seconds.

Despite my enthusiasm, I failed to realize that impressing my in-laws with my ability to do anything remotely Texas-ish is apparently not in the cards for me. The universe will not allow it.

As we waited to be partnered with our horses, I couldn’t help but marvel at just how strong the horses seemed. While I am not afraid of horses, I do have a healthy respect for them. They are big, fast, powerful and could stomp me into oblivion if they chose to. But today, I was ready to cowboy up. The weather was perfect, the scenery gorgeous, I was primed for a successful ride. And then I met my horse, Little Johnny.

Little Johnny was roughly the size of a sport utility vehicle.

I would be lying if I said my heart rate didn’t pick up a bit when I saw Little Johnny, but I tried to play it cool. No biggie, I had always wanted to ride what appeared to be a full-sized Clydesdale. It seemed liked the perfectly logical transition from the 3 foot tall Shetland pony I had “ridden” 20 plus years earlier. Even just getting into the saddle was a challenge. I nearly tore my hamstring trying to kick my foot up to the stirrup. Trying to be as graceful as possible, I saddled up. As if trying to control Little Johnny on my own was not going to be hard enough, it was somehow decided that my 2 year old daughter Kailey would ride with me. Undaunted, I grabbed hold of Kailey, got her situated in the saddle, and held on to the reins.

The best part of the ride, which also dramatically increased the degree of difficulty, was the fact that this was not the typical “5 horses tethered to a pole walking in a 20 foot circle” horse ride. This was an honest to goodness trail ride. We had a guide in front and in back, but each horse was free to do whatever they wanted to do. And Little Johnny wanted to eat. We had been instructed to make sure to stop the horses from putting their heads down to eat when they tried, but between holding Kailey in one arm, and holding the reins of arguably the world’s strongest, hungriest horse in the other, I was fighting a losing battle. I am a fairly strong person, but on countless occasions, every ounce of strength I had was still not enough to discourage him from stopping to eat.

“Kick him in the side when you yank up,” suggested one of the guides. Perched atop this mountain of a horse – a horse who already seemed to have issues with me – clinging to my baby girl, I thought that sounded about as smart as poking a sleeping bear with a sharp stick. Given his apparent dislike of my riding style, I was skeptical that kicking him in the ribs would win me any points, but I was out of options. I said a little prayer, kicked, yanked, and held my breath. Magically Little Johnny started walking. Almost immediately after starting, however, he turned and we made eye contact. I actually saw his expression change from anger to pity. I got the distinct impression that he understood that he was in complete control, and that there was no way I was going to “handle” him in any way that would even remotely impressed my in-laws.

About half-way into my 90 minute tug-of-war with Little Johnny, I began to notice that it was getting harder and harder to keep Kailey sitting upright. Somehow, in the midst of my groaning, straining, yanking and pleading, she had fallen asleep.

After I made some adjustments in the saddle to ensure that I had a firm grasp on her, I was basically left with only my right hand to try to control a mammoth horse that had apparently not eaten in well over a month. As if sensing my predicament, Little Johnny dramatically increased the frequency with which he stopped to eat. About every 30 feet, he would stop, yank his head downward, snicker and begin grazing. If you have ever tried to repeatedly lift a car that didn’t want to be lifted with your bare hand, while sitting 10 feet in the air and balancing a 30 pound sand bag in your other arm, with your father-in-law (whom you are trying to impress) patiently sitting behind you witnessing everything, then you have a sense as to the situation I found myself.

In between my frequent power struggles with Little Johnny, the ride itself was an incredible experience. The scenery was beautiful, the weather was perfect, and everyone was doing a great job on their horses. Tyler and his cousin Morghan, both only 5 years old, were riding their horses like old pros.

To be honest, with the exception of me struggling atop Mt. Johnny, you would have thought the whole group grew up on a ranch. Even Kailey, who had finally woken up from her nap, was thoroughly enjoying the ride.

Near the end of the ride, Little Johnny, either exhausted from my constant yanking and pestering or just wanting to prove a point, stumbled and fell forward on his front knees. He must have been embarrassed because, once he had regained his footing, he freaked out a bit and decided to buck and kick for a few seconds. To an objective observer, I am sure it was an innocuous little kick. But for someone tired, sore, and holding onto a 2 year old, it felt like I had entered a rodeo. I am proud to report that Kailey and I managed to stay on throughout the whole experience – an experience that over time will surely become at least a 30 second wild ride on a bucking bronco – and Little Johnny eventually calmed down.

To be safe, it was decided that Kailey would spend the rest of the ride with Granddad. As I admitted defeat and handed Kailey to my father-in-law, I swear I saw Little Johnny smile.

The last 10 minutes of the ride were pleasantly uneventful. I had both hands firmly on the reins, and anytime Little Johnny even thought about stopping to eat, I pulled on the reins, gave an authoritative kick, and we would mosey along. As we pulled into the stable, I was feeling a little better about myself. To a certain extent, I felt like I was on the right path towards redeeming even the tiniest bit of my pride, so I wanted to finish strong. While trying to dismount as gracefully as possible, I couldn’t for the life of me get my shoe unstuck from the stirrup. My “finishing strong” consisted of several agonizing moments working furiously to dislodge myself from the stirrup in an attempt to avoid falling on my face. Somewhat surprisingly, Little Johnny just patiently waited. Thankfully, I was able to ultimately dismount without further incident, but I think it is safe to assume that anyone watching would never confuse me for a seasoned cowboy.

This is not the first time in my life where my ego got in the way of reality. I guess I just got a little too excited trying to impress my Texas family. Plus, who wouldn’t want to be a cowboy? When push comes to shove, I think I could get a horse from point A to point B, but other than that, everything about my riding expertise screams “tourist”.

Things tend to work out better for me when I am honest about who I am, what I am good at, and what I am not. When I worry about trying to be something I’m not, it rarely ends well. Little Johnny reminded me of that. Repeatedly.

To be perfectly honest, I am a fan of Facebook. But just like overindulging in anything else, too much Facebook can lead to potential problems. Don’t get me wrong, learning that Susie in Wichita got a high score in Bejeweled and that Doug from Sioux Falls is happy it’s sunny is a great way to stay connected, but the bottom line is that I just want to see a bit more of my wife. She is a Facebookaholic.

At first, I thought it was just a phase she was going through, just reconnecting with old friends. But as time passed and Facebook became an increasingly important member of our family, I began to get a little worried. My wife is addicted to people, and Facebook is her enabler of choice. I knew we were heading for trouble when, upon returning late from a night out with friends, Andrea proceeded directly to the office to log in to Facebook to post comments to the very friends she had just spent the evening with, about the evening they had just spent together. Literally just spent together. Within roughly 2 minutes of them saying their good byes, 7 status updates, 15 wall posts, 172 comments and 37 photos had been uploaded and distributed throughout the Facebook community. The whole group was addicted.

As a short term remedy, I went ahead and created my own account, and thankfully she accepted my friend request. At least now I can send her communications that I am on my way home, I am downstairs, or on more than one occasion that I am standing beside her waiting for a response to a question I had just asked while she is fully engrossed in her Facebook world. I just can’t compete with the comings and goings of her 23,745 best friends. I think rock bottom for me was when I logged in and Facebook suggested that I reconnect with Andrea.

It seemed to be mocking me.

I do like Facebook though, because it is fun to catch up with people. It has allowed me to stay a little better connected to some old friends I had lost touch with. It’s nice. But Facebook isn’t the number one social networking site on the web, and its creator isn’t a gazillionaire, because it’s nice to occasionally catch up with old friends. It is successful, because people like Andrea, people who appreciate and understand the value of relationships, are totally hooked. It builds, or in some cases rebuilds, connections, and it allows people to easily stay in touch. At first, I didn’t really get it. I didn’t quite understand why anyone would care what I had eaten for dinner, how I felt about the current weather, or where I was going next weekend. I didn’t get the significance of the connections, or the importance of the relationships. Seemed like a cute idea, but kind of a waste of time if you weren’t careful. I thought about, as a joke, posting something along those lines as my status update, but I didn’t want Andrea to “unfriend” me.

The importance of relationships was made abundantly clear to me recently at work. During a staff meeting, a short video clip was shown and it really made me think. It was one of those videos that shows the earth from increasingly farther and farther distances. From a purely visual perspective it was very impressive, and I am sure it was meant to be motivational. That being said, as the camera panned farther away, I found myself getting more and more depressed. It felt like this:

- 1,000 meters: Beautiful mountain range, feeling good

- 10,000 meters: From the sky, still very impressive, loving life

- 100,000 meters: See the whole earth, love my planet, life is good

- 1,000,000 meters: Small planet, lots of other celestial bodies around, feeling smaller

- 10 light years: Sun, moon, earth just specs amid many specs, beginning to question my place in the universe

- 100 light years: Milky way just a cluster of lights, can’t see earth, can’t even really see the sun, feeling insignificant, beginning to wonder what the point of my existence is

- 10,000 light years: Millions of tiny, barely visible specs, supposedly one of them is the Milky way, woefully depressed, wondering why I even get out of bed in the morning

- 1,000,000 light years: Nothing but tiny specs of light, a new-found appreciation for just how insignificant I am, impressed by the scale of the universe, but fully convinced that there is absolutely no point in getting out of bed ever again

Given the positive and encouraging environment within which I work, I know for a fact that this was not the intended takeaway, but I couldn’t help but feel the weight of my insignificance in the grand scheme of things. The only analogy I could think about was that of ants. I thought about ants and how they toil away endlessly in search of food. I suddenly felt like a tiny little ant toiling away for food, money, validation, you name it.

On a positive note, I realized just how ludicrous it was for me to stress out about some of the relatively inconsequential details that I often worry about. Suddenly the 20 pounds I have been wanting to lose seemed to matter far less. But the downside was an overwhelming sense of “what’s the point”?

After I moped around for a day or two feeling pitiful and insignificant, Andrea pointed out to me that I was better than an ant because of the relationships in my life. For as long as I can remember, I tied the value of my life to what I had accomplished. The goal was to always get ahead in a measurable fashion – raises, degrees, promotions, titles, money. The reality of the situation is that if I didn’t have any one to share the successes and failures with, the entire journey wouldn’t have been as rewarding. The friends and family I have in my life are what make it all worthwhile.

My relationships are the answer to the question “what’s the point” – they are why my life is significant. And the more meaningful, rewarding relationships I am fortunate enough to develop, the better. Suddenly, and part of me hates to admit this, Facebook made a lot more sense. At some point in the near future, I will admit this to Andrea, but I am too tired to log in right now and make it my status update. Maybe tomorrow.

To be clear, I have never been someone who could sit through a 3 hour “dining experience”, but there is no denying the fact that, at one point in my life, going out to a nice restaurant for a wonderful meal was quite a treat. My children, whom I love more than life itself, have somehow managed to take that away from me.

Don’t get me wrong, every few weeks Andrea and I still put our game faces on and try to take the family out for a “fun family dining experience”, but it rarely ends well. It usually takes a few weeks for the “we will never do that again” feeling to fade away before we try again, but invariably we try again. For better or worse, we always try again. I must admit, despite the angst that I carry during these “relaxing” family dining experiences, I am so thankful that we haven’t given up. At our most recent attempt, Tyler, Kailey and a $0.02 plastic slinky taught me an important lesson.

The outing started like all the rest. It was probably 4:00 or 4:30 in the afternoon and I asked Andrea if she wanted to take the kids out to eat for dinner. You know, just a fun family outing. It had been a few weeks since we had been banned from the last restaurant we had gone to,

so the pact I had made with myself to “never go through that again ever in this lifetime” (I have been told that I have a flair for the dramatic) had long since faded. Everyone was up for it, so the process began.
I use the term “process” because taking kids to, well anywhere, is exactly that. It is a process. A fairly lengthy process actually. It is about as far from the old days of hopping in the car and going as imaginable. Once, I made the near-fatal mistake of taking Tyler to a restaurant after circumventing the process. Only once. Lesson learned. Let’s face it, most little kids are not capable of sitting quietly in a brand new environment, patiently waiting for food. At least mine aren’t. They want to touch, taste, see and hear anything and everything around them. Most of our preparation process is about bringing whatever tools we can think of to keep the kids entertained so they don’t get bored and go all Lord of The Flies on us.

About 30 minutes into our preparation process we took stock of where we were:

Books – check
Crayons – check
Cheerios – check
Toys – check
Change of clothes – check
Leapster – check
Nintendo DS – check
Coloring book – check
Fruit snacks – check
Dolls – check
Wipes – check
Hand sanitizer – check
Sippy cup – check

With the exception of Tyler running around without pants – pants that had been on him only moments before – and a missing flip-flop for Kailey, things were looking good. Departure was imminent. With pants finally back on and a quick change of shoes, we were on our way.

You would think that showing up to a restaurant with what would appear to be enough luggage for a weeklong vacation would be slightly embarrassing.

You would be right. But, as embarrassing as it might be, showing up with nothing is not an option. There are simply too many things on the standard restaurant table – sharp knives, forks, glasses, salt, pepper, condiments, etc. – that my kids are drawn to that they could potentially hurt themselves, or those sitting near us, with. Thus the luggage. We normally spend some time coloring, then maybe a little reading, perhaps some cheerios to buy some time. It really is quite the production trying to keep everyone entertained so they don’t end up throwing a fork across the room. And I have pretty well-behaved kids!

Probably the biggest shift in my dining habits has been the sheer speed with which I now must consume my food. Once the food arrives, Andrea and I often take turns eating – one takes care of making sure the kids food is not too hot, that it is cut into bite size pieces, and that they are actually eating. Kailey, in particular, seems totally interested in eating until the food actually arrives.

Then, she would rather explore under the table or stand on the seat and introduce herself to our neighbors. While one of us is keeping the kids engaged, the other is wolfing down their food like an animal that hasn’t eaten in a month. To an outsider, particularly one with children, it is probably either the funniest or the most disgusting thing they have ever seen. I can’t imagine that eating at this velocity is even remotely healthy, but on the plus side, I now know that if my life depended on it, I could polish off a complete meal is just under 32 seconds.

The meal was, somewhat shockingly, relatively uneventful. We had our fair share of near misses – Tyler insisted on exploring under the table and Kailey was bound and determined to lick the pepper shaker – but all in all, it was a nice outing. I could tell we had grown quite a bit given that 1) our table did not look like a bomb had gone off on it, and 2) there were not hundreds of cheerios on the ground under our table. I felt like we had done it. A successful, uneventful family outing. I was wrong.

On the way out, the restaurant had a toy chest where the kids could pick out a little toy to take home. Tyler went first and picked out a tiny, plastic, green and pink Slinky. Kailey, always eager to emulate her big brother, also picked out a tiny Slinky, but hers was solid pink. We said our thank you’s and our good bye’s and headed to the car. As I sat in the car waiting for everyone to buckle up, I remember thinking that we had really turned a corner. Andrea and I had stayed calm, the kids had done a great job of eating and behaving, and we had all been rewarded with a nice family dinner. I was proud of the whole family. It was at that moment, most likely as a direct result of my hubris, that the universe decided to take the opportunity to teach Tyler, and the rest of us as well, a lesson.

There are several clichés that address this topic, “the grass is always greener” and “be careful what you wish for” are just a couple. Tyler, unaware of these valuable, cliché life lessons, looked at his Slinky, then looked over at Kailey’s, and decided that he had made a mistake with his selection. He wanted hers. As a 5 year old, his natural tendency is to just take what he wants, but we have been working long and hard about using our words, so he politely asked Kailey for a trade. Kailey, who happens to love the color green, was more than happy to oblige. The trade was made.

It took roughly 3.4 seconds for our fun, family outing to become a nuclear meltdown.

Almost immediately, Tyler looked at the pink Slinky he had so highly coveted, quickly saw that it was basically the same as his original one, only it had far less color, and realized that he had made a huge mistake. He asked for a trade back, but Kailey was not interested. The fact that her new Slinky had green in it was like a dream come true for her. Tyler, distraught over brokering this bad deal, responded by calling her a “piener-wiener” and the tears started to flow. I empathized with him, but as I was explaining to him that name calling was not acceptable, that he had to take some responsibility since the trade was his idea, and that pink Slinkys were just as good as pink and green Slinkys, he lost it.

From the sound of it, you would have thought that we ripped his leg off. In the blink of an eye, both kids were screaming and crying, and the peaceful, easy feelings associated with our successful family dining experience were thrown out the window.

As we drove home, I realized that in a lot of ways, I am just like Tyler. I have a tendency of glamorizing what I don’t have, and discounting what I do. I always seem to want a little more. We have a great house, but I find myself wanting a bigger backyard. We have a nice, big TV, but I find myself wanting to have surround sound. Wherever I have worked, I have enjoyed myself, but always wanted more responsibility, more challenge. I love my life, but always feel like there is more I should be doing to make a difference. Whatever it is, the grass always seems greener on the other side. Over time, and with the occasional reminder from a tiny, plastic Slinky, I have realized how lucky I am, and how wanting what I don’t have isn’t the answer. Appreciating what I do have is far more enjoyable.

The truth of the matter is that over the last few years, there have been two defining experiences in my life that are primarily responsible for my commitment to trying to live now. These events not only changed my life, they also dramatically altered how I see my world around me. It is because of these events that AlwaysLiveNOW.com was created, and it is through these two trying, and enlightening, times in my life that most of my personal growth has occurred. Don’t get me wrong, I will be the first to admit that I have a long way to go, but I know that because of these two events, my life is on a different, better path, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

The first event, which I have already shared, was when Tyler had his health scare. Feeling like there was a very real possibility that I was going to lose my son changed my life. The preciousness of NOW was made abundantly clear to me. As painful as that time was for us, it has been relatively easy to share the experience because 1) Tyler is happy and healthy and his medication has helped control his epilepsy, and 2) the positive impact of this wake-up call has been profound.

I now have a much better awareness and appreciation for my blessed life, and I know that every moment is an opportunity to be embraced and enjoyed.

The second event has been much harder to come to terms with, and this is why I feel like I have reached a writer’s block of sorts. I know that I want and need to tell this story since what I have learned from it with respect to living now has been tremendous, but actually sitting down to write it has been surprisingly difficult. Given that an inordinate amount of my own personal growth has resulted from this experience, I feel it is important to share it, but I would by lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that still longed for the blissful ignorance I had before it happened.

One year ago, the seemingly happy, healthy relationship I had with my parents for 35 years was forever altered in a matter of minutes. To celebrate my 35th birthday, Andrea and I had invited my parents and my sister to our house for the weekend. Everything seemed normal, everyone seemed happy. The whole weekend felt like one of our typical fun family get-togethers. Unfortunately, as is often the case when the straw breaks the camel’s back, a seemingly trivial matter changed everything. In this case, the straw that broke my parents’ back was a possible change in plans for an upcoming weekend visit. We had been talking about getting together at their house in a few weeks when I mentioned that one of the proposed weekends wouldn’t work for us because something had come up that was important for my family – me, Andrea, Tyler and Kailey. Surprisingly, this not only broke the camels back, it effectively broke every bone in the poor camel’s body.

It still seems almost unreal to me when I think about it, but my parents totally lost it. Apparently, in their opinion, it was completely unacceptable for me to prioritize my family over them. It was, and still is, unbelievable to me how much rage they had. Don’t get me wrong, I have seen my parents angry on plenty of occasions, but this time was totally different. My dad kept screaming and yelling and basically challenged me to a fist fight, while my mom kept going on and on about how much Andrea and I, and the rest of the world for that matter, constantly took advantage of her, and how fed up she was with it. The whole thing completely caught me off guard. I honestly didn’t know how to respond. It was both infuriating and heartbreaking at the same time. The hardest part to swallow through it all was the fact that both Andrea and I had constantly bent over backwards to do things for them and to include them in our lives because we loved them, and yet there we were, in our own backyard, being physically and verbally attacked for “constantly taking advantage of them”.

Needless to say, the visit was over within the hour, and I was left to process what had just transpired. It still felt hard to believe. I kept replaying my parents’ reactions and behavior over and over in my head – the anger, the resentment, all of the accusations. Even though they had inappropriately attacked both me and Andrea, I felt like I must have really done something wrong to make them behave that way. I moped around for the better part of a week, part of me waiting for an apology from them, the rest of me blaming myself for everything. At the end of a miserable week, it dawned on me that, while my parents obviously felt a certain way, I didn’t have to blindly subscribe to their story just because they were my parents. Despite their anger and hostility, I honestly didn’t feel as though I had done anything wrong. If anything, I felt like I should be the angry one given the fact that I felt like I had constantly prioritized their feelings and had always worked hard to make sure they felt like they were a part of the family, and the result was their open hostility.

Eventually, I emailed them what I was feeling. It was a painstaking writing exercise since I wanted to make sure the message conveyed how much I loved them, but also how disappointed I was by what had transpired. I assumed responsibility for the things I could have done better, and I focused on being clear, calm, and constructive, because I wanted to work through the issues so we could begin repairing our relationship. Their responses were unexpected to say the least. Rather than admit to any of their responsibility for all of the mess – or at least acknowledging how wildly inappropriate their behavior was – my dad sent a one line reply that he “couldn’t control my interesting perception” and my mom said that I was wrong, she was right and that she had even more she wanted to say, but that she wasn’t sure I could handle it. Nice. Baffled, and admittedly a little angry, I told her to go ahead and continue sharing. I thought it couldn’t possibly get worse, but, without going into all of the details, suffice it to say that it definitely has.

The past twelve months have been an overwhelming, painful, empowering, frustrating, enlightening, often bizarre, sometimes comedic, sometimes tragic journey into the truth of yet another perfectly “normal”, dysfunctional family.

I have had to face some truths about my family that I chose to ignore, or at least deny, for all of my life. Just like every other family in the world, we had our problems. And just like every other person in the world, my parents had their own set of issues.

Unfortunately, in my family, no one ever wanted to talk about them, or even admit that they existed. I had gone so far as to convince myself that I was lucky because my family was perfect, and I think that is the primary reason why all of this has been so eye opening and challenging. The mind is definitely powerful, and ignorance definitely was bliss. The harsh reality is that I spent a lot of my relationship with my parents – for as long as I can remember – feeling like I wasn’t good enough, being afraid of my dad’s temper, working my tail off trying to make them happy, and it never seemed to be enough for them. The weekend blowup was just another example, albeit a more explosive one than normal, of them making me feel like I was responsible for their happiness, and that I had failed.

It has been hard coming to terms with the reality of my true family dynamic, particularly given how long I had believed my “perfect family myth”, but the worst part has been that, to this day, neither of my parents are even willing to acknowledge their part in any of this. My dad has removed himself from the situation completely – I haven’t heard from him in a year – and my mom continues to dismiss and deny any possibility other than her perception that I, like the rest of the world, just constantly takes advantage of her.

Over the course of the year, as I have tried to encourage getting to the bottom of what is really going on, my mom has called me everything from “just an angry little kid” to “a pompous, Dr Oz-a**hole wannabe”

(I think she meant Dr. Phil, at least I hope she meant Dr. Phil) to somebody who “just can’t handle the truth”, to name just a few. I would be lying if I said the personal attacks and passive-aggressive jabs didn’t hurt, but the reality is that my parents’ resistance, denial and anger have actually helped promote healing. Their behavior has forced me to really work on myself, to focus on my own issues, and to let go of trying to fix things that are not my responsibility to fix. With my parents, I now know that, as much as I would love for them to be happy, I am not solely responsible for their happiness. At some point, just like I am trying to do in my own life, they are going to have to process their own emotional baggage. The events of the past year have helped me start to do that, and I feel like I have learned a lot about myself, and have identified some of my behaviors that I really want to work on changing. Some of the more important things I have learned that have really helped me live NOW include the following:

Healthy relationships are built upon open, honest communication
More than anything I have learned throughout this experience, I now firmly believe that happy, healthy relationships – even the relationships we have with ourselves – are built upon openness and honesty. Anything less has the potential to lead to bitterness, anger, and resentment. If we are unable to be honest and productively communicate with our loved ones, how can we possibly expect there to be the necessary level of trust to build a healthy, sustainable relationship? From my own experience, I know that whenever I bottle things up, it only leads to frustration, tension, and ultimately, resentment. In the end, something has to give. It is impossible to carry around resentment forever. And then, when all of the bottled up anger and resentment finally come pouring out, it can be difficult to repair the relationships that have been impacted. Being open and honest as much as possible is really the only way that I have found to keep feelings of resentment from starting.

Ironically, in the last communication I received from my mom, she said that through this experience her main epiphany has been that all of this could have been avoided if she would have kept her true feelings to herself, because “I obviously couldn’t handle it”. I feel like she is missing the main point. I think hiding is sometimes the easy thing to do, but I actually think it is probably the least productive thing you can do to foster healthy relationships. I believe that a lot of the heartache of the past year could have been avoided if my parents had been much more honest with themselves, and with the whole family from the beginning. Instead, they have chosen to bottle up their true feelings for the better part of their lives, at least as long as I have known them, and the resulting resentment has been profound.

Everyone has their own issues
For the longest time, I felt like I was the only one who had any issues. I felt like everyone around me always had it together, and that there must be something wrong with me because I felt like a complete mess at times. I grew up convinced that my parents were infallible, and as I got older, anytime any point of contention arose in our relationship, I naturally assumed that I was at fault. Over the course of the past year, my mom has shared with me some of the details of her childhood. She grew up in a situation where she rarely felt loved, and where she always felt like she had to do things for others to get them to value her. No matter what she did, she never felt like it was good enough for her parents. Similarly, she shared that my dad has his own set of emotional issues stemming from a childhood raised in an abusive environment where he was made to feel unwanted and unloved.

Hearing this, hearing that my role models – the people that I thought were perfect and had it all together – had been carrying around their own fears, inadequacies, and insecurities for almost 60 years was incredibly eye-opening. It helped me see that we all have our issues, and it showed my how powerful our issues are at shaping how we perceive the world around us.

In my life, I grew up in an environment where I felt like what I did was never good enough.

Now, I am beginning to see how this has impacted who I am today. Whenever I am in a new situation, I am terribly insecure and I feel like everyone is judging me. And given my history of never feeling good enough, I naturally feel like everyone is judging me negatively, thus confirming in my mind that I am not good enough. It almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way. I have been conditioned to feel a certain way about myself, just like my parents have been conditioned to feel a certain way about themselves, so we always end up finding exactly what we have been programmed to believe. Every innocuous word, deed or even passing glance becomes a confirmation of our worst fears.

Now that I am finally being open and honest about my own set of fears and insecurities, it has become abundantly clear to me that I am not alone. Everyone I talk to, almost without fail, has shared with me the challenges and issues that they face in their own lives. Whether we choose to admit to them and deal with them is an entirely different issue, but the reality is that we are all carrying around our fair share of emotional baggage. Knowing that I am not alone has allowed me to cut myself some slack, and to realize that I don’t have to be perfect.

I get to choose how I feel
I am not trying to fool myself into believing that I am in total control of my emotions. Far from it. Instead, what I am trying to better understand is that I am ultimately responsible for how I feel about myself. In the past – even the very recent past – I would allow other people to dictate how I felt about myself on an almost daily basis. It’s frustrating, but it’s true. With respect to my parents, for as long as I can remember, I would regularly let their words and actions make me feel guilty, wrong, even selfish to name just a few. Even with a family of my own, I still found myself susceptible to the slightest suggestion that I wasn’t being “the good son”. I never wanted to let them down – I don’t know anyone who wants to disappoint their parents – so I worked even harder trying to include them, and to make sure that they knew how much they were loved. But laboring under a cloud of guilt will take its toll, and there is no denying the fact that I felt like I deserved a medal for my efforts, not more guilt for not having done enough.

Now, I have a better understanding of the distinction between how I really feel, and how I am allowing someone else to make me feel. It is a precarious balance. Through this experience, I have a much better appreciation for how destructive empowering others with how I feel can be. Thankfully, I have grown to a point where I realize that I can take that power back. For me, the key is in figuring out how to be empathetic and supportive to others, while also making sure that I don’t let their issues shape how I feel about myself.

As trying as this experience has been, from a “glass is half full” perspective, it has also been an incredible gift. I feel like I have only scratched the surface with respect to how much I have learned and how much it has positively impacted my ability to live NOW. I want to be true to myself, and to those around me. I want to develop and maintain meaningful, respectful relationships built on honesty. I want to be empathetic to those around me who need it, but to take back ownership of how I feel about myself. The price of these lessons has been high, but I feel like I have been blessed with a unique opportunity to see, and to work on – and hopefully fix! – some of my own potentially destructive behaviors before it is too late.