cleaning the bucket

If I wrote a book about values, there would be a metal bucket on the cover. I have no idea where this bucket theme came from. I should trademark that fast. Along this theme about our value bucket is the notion that it requires a regular cleaning. Some values can be stuck at the bottom that it’s hidden from plain sight. We forget that they were one of the first values to throw in there and over time it can grow to be in conflict with other, newer values. I think some of these initial values are wonderful to look at because it demonstrates the progress made over time. And pulling these out for a good cleaning/renewing is a healthy exercise.

Frequently the first values centre around money, or moreover our attitude towards money. We grow up with little or lots, and this shapes our picture of the value of a dollar. When we start to earn income on our own, the transformation of that value takes place and we either save every penny (if it still exists in your country) and spend more than we should. I have rarely seen a balance between the two extremes. This spending power gives us a sense of ownership and pride. And that value takes a strong root in our lives.

In comes a partner and we have conflict. I don’t know of any example where the money-value was without challenge or demand. And like I’ve said before, the best time for values to be worked on is during and after fights. Because this is such a difficult value to work on, chances are you threw it in the bucket and moved on to the next issue. Over time, priorities change with shared values. You might buy a house or have a kid or invest a lot or lose your job. Exciting stuff. Either way, cleaning out the bucket will happen whether you like it or not – these unsolved questions that stem of deep-rooted values need responses.

With these values at the bottom of the bucket, it’s crucial to go into the exercise with the intention to evolve and enhance. If you grip them with all your strength, you just might crush them into dust, and that won’t help things move forward. You’ve had those values for a reason and they’ve both helped and hinder your progress. It’s time to make them better and brighter. Shine them up together.

important to you

It’s a romantic thing to say to your spouse, “What’s important to you is important to me.” The reality is that it’s easier said than done, and if you say it you have to follow through. Based on what I mentioned yesterday, sharing values from the bucket promotes healthy and productive communication between partners. It’s when you’ve got a conflicting value that things get a bit messy. You see this clearly and loudly in fights. This challenge to communication is a great opportunity to reshape and align your shared values.

To adopt “what is important to you” into something with real traction, the first place to dig deep is your intentions for declaring it: are you trying to keep the peace and avoid conflict? Or are you trying to negotiate something and work around being upfront about it? Ultimately, saying that you have already exchanged whatever values that conflict for whatever values your partner deems to be important involves a lot more work under the hood. And 80% of the work is within your heart and mind. The rest of it is figuring out the changes in your lives together. My advice is to get specific about what you “want” to make as a shared level of importance and priority. And also declare that you “want” to “try” to share this important value together.

Imagine it like this. You grow up in a family and receive values (mostly through actions and experiences). For a long time, you don’t realize there are different and better/worse situations out there amongst your peers. Since you don’t know any different, a transformation occurs as you discover your ability to choose and the pride of ownership (of defined values). In a sense, you’re building a castle to house the things you want to protect. One day you meet someone that you trust and are willing to open the gates to your fortress. The problem is that your partner also has a castle with higher and stronger walls. Your major, intense conflicts bring you to the realization that you’ve opened your domain up to attack and potential take-over. Ever do the “best defence is a good offence” thing and attack first?

Sell the castles, buy land together, and build a new one that’s stronger and greater.

the value bucket

Our household schedule was a disaster this weekend. I had to go here, Serena had to go there, Ryan was just doing his thing. It felt like going 100mph without knowing when to stop so you anticipate a crash any minute. As a result, we’re tired and out of energy for the beginning of the week. Why did we get ourselves into this? It probably has it’s source somewhere in the personal values area. And as we’re learning as a young family, we could’ve spent a lot more energy on working our values out before Ryan came along.

Healthy marriages require shifting and transforming our individual values into something that I refer to as the value bucket. There are values that you as an individual hold that are jive or conflict with your partner’s. For those that work in harmony, those are keepers to be worked on in the future. Throw them into the bucket. You both can share these and draw from them for decision making. Just keep in mind that you have to keep revisiting these and this usually happens during and after a fight.

Then you have those that conflict. Either you change your values to work or you start to build yourself a cave to live by yourself. There isn’t a 50/50 negotiation principle that can make you both happy with your own values. In this case, you can let go of a certain value and adopt one of your partner’s. This isn’t about letting the man dominate your living or giving in to your woman’s demands. It comes down to two becoming one. Ensure that you’re not transforming bitterly or else it’ll creep back up during and after a fight.

Perhaps the most challenging part is the areas that don’t have a defined value in your marriage. Here, you can create a value together. Over time, you’ll sway one way and change it. Great! Doing this together is exciting but tends to draw in the other values that have your name on it in the bucket. It’s like pulling on a string to find a whole bunch of stuff connected to it that you didn’t see in the first place. I think the best opportunity to create these types of values is – you guessed it – during and after a fight.

Ryan had his first taste of gelato in Italy. I didn’t feel comfortable with it. Serena was excited to give it a try. The change was quick but I thought that it was good she solicited my opinion about it, and so we decided it was okay. He loved it. And I think more of it had to do with him feeling his parents are both behind him. Yum.

lack of patience

It usually takes me about 20mins to get to work in the morning. A couple days ago, it was closer to 35mins because of two drivers.

I was exiting the Timmies drive-thru and there was a car in front of me indicating she was turning right. A couple people left space for her to do so but for some reason she didn’t move. You guessed it. She wanted to cross all the lanes to turn left at the intersection. It’s 8:30am. There are a lot of cars. I waited about 2min before honking the horn. Then it was about 5mins (one whole song and half on the radio) before I could finally continue on my way. Were the cars behind me honking as well? Did I give the lady a bad look? I thought this was the worst part of my daily commute.

I make a left turn at a busy intersection with two left turn lanes. I usually pick the right one which had 3 cars ahead of me. Was it enough time for me to make my turn? Nope. The 2nd car didn’t go and held the rest of us back. By the time I made it to the intersection, the light was red. I was the 4th car. Why didn’t I use the left lane? Was it too much to expect that a driver would pay attention?

It’s a huge reminder that the continuum of intelligence for drivers is far more vast than I thought it was. There are the drivers that are unaware. Then there are some that just don’t think altogether. Add in a few McNugget idiots and inconsiderate half-wits and that covers at a high level one end of the spectrum. What a crappy way to start the day. I don’t have any wisdom here except to advise certain people to stay home or take public transit.

under the couch

I was watching my son the other day reaching for something under the couch and he ended up pulling out a bunch of dust bunnies. He looked at the crap in his hands for a minute and decided that it wasn’t what he wanted. It took him a couple tries before he gave up in disappointment. He was reaching for this toy Lion but ended up with dust and hair between his fingers. I agreed with him that the result of his search came out bad.

I’ve had this email going on for a while with a friend about mortgages and it had me thinking about the things we adults reach for. I think most people are searching for good things like joy or a sense of security and accomplishment. But what usually happens is in the process we end up with stuff we don’t want like debt or even some unhealthy relationships. We are innately impatient and opportunistic. And with our low interest rates, it’s difficult to slow things down to look at the situation before reaching under the couch.

GPS for living

On our trip to Germany this past fall, I rented a car that had a GPS unit installed but unfortunately the language was only German. So the rental company provided an external unit that was English based. While driving, I figured out how to enter in the destination details in German and as a backup, I entered it into the external unit. Having both units gave me some peace of mind knowing that I would somehow get to where I wanted to go. Did I mention that I also had my route printed from googlemaps? Overkill, I know. One of my fears was getting lost… and it’s a big deal as a “man” but also as a father.

I once thought that the Bible was our map through life. Somebody coined an acronym for B.I.B.L.E: Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth. But my experience has proved otherwise because life just isn’t so straightforward. For sure, I think the Bible has some guiding principles but nothing about where and when to turn right or left. What I have found is that we are all wanting a GPS for life’s journey to keep us on track towards our destination.

Do most of us know what we want our ultimate destination to be? Unlikely. I am aware more of where I don’t want to end up. The easy thing is not bankrupt, not unemployed, not miserable and hopeless, not alone… You can’t enter that kind of destination into a GPS.

What’s more interesting is that even if we had a GPS for our lives, would we really place enough trust in it? I guarantee you that should an attractive detour present itself, it would be fairly easy to go off course. You know what I mean: “Oh, I think that’s the place because it seems like what I’m looking for.” Besides, being over-dependent on a GPS or any guidance for that matter is dangerous. Hear of the stories where people drove into lakes because the GPS told them too? There’s a funny episode of The Office.

So, in the end you’ve got to have a dream/destination and a plan/route. The rest just falls into place. Don’t forget to notice the scenery along the way.

how to grandparent

This photo was taken exactly a year ago. I do that from time to time, and it reminds me that time keeps moving forward whether we like it or not. And one item that’s still a mystery to me as a parent is how to grandparent. Because not everybody has grandparents to grow up with. I only remember my father’s mother even though I’ve been told that I used to help my paternal grandfather walk around. I think the common misconception is that grandparenting is an extension of parenting. The fact is that there isn’t much out there to guide or counsel grandparents… so we’re taking it as we go along.

The top issue is boundaries, and this stems from our own experiences. It’s a good thing to have regardless of whether your own parents knew when enough was enough. And what’s more difficult is to maintain these not only for yourself but for your children. We still have the responsibility to massage the family environment so relationships can grow and mature over time. The easy thing is to “take things as they come” and observe opportunities pass by. Grandchildren need to feel safe and loved. This doesn’t mean it’s all hugs and kisses. It does require reading body language and understanding that there’s a time and place for things.

Perhaps the second highest issue is around grace. How much to you give out to grandparents? I think the answer is “as much as you can, and then some!” It’s related to boundaries for sure… but grace is needed before and after. Grandparents have a lot of expectations for their grandchildren. They get excited and yet also know that their time limited. Keeping in mind that they are older and have little experience to draw upon, I think we need to be an example of grace and do as much smiling and caring as possible.

And lastly, I’ll keep this short… it’s dependency. Grandparents are our parents. We still have a dependent relationship with them. Of course, it’s important to watch that we don’t classify them as default babysitters (even though they may offer again and again). The parent-child relationship still needs to be maintained, and the best way as adults is to foster healthy communication. Just talk. Ask for their advice and solicit some stories of what it was like when raising you. Grandparents thrive when they feel wanted and needed. In this way, it’s absolutely a good thing to give them what they want.

squeezing bitterness out

Ever be on the receiving end of a grumpy person’s comment? This happened to me last week and for some strange reason I haven’t been able to let it go. It was her tone, it came across as rude… I thought there were about 205 different ways to deliver the message that would’ve been way better. The comment wasn’t long. It was just short and caught me totally off guard.

The more I tried to excuse her behaviour, the more bitter I became. Why am I trying to justify such a stupid thing? Does she even deserve my respect? She’s off the list. Done.

Writing people off seems easy but I find it difficult to finally let them go. Actually, I find trying to forget whatever they did to piss me off next to impossible. The more I try to forget, the more I remember. And I keep playing the scene again and again. Of course, this makes me even more bitter for wasting all of this energy on someone/something that doesn’t deserve it. Why is this the case?

Ultimately, you’ve got to displace the bitterness out. Start to pour in some joy and excitement into your thinking. Let yourself laugh about something worth laughing about. We waste way too much time on things that don’t add value to life.

testing your patience

I’ve had a few difficult meals with my kid. It’s like he’s hungry but he needs something to have in his hands to study or play with. This was one of those habits that we created to help him eat while he was sick. The toy (in this case a water bottle) helped him ignore his clogged up nose and focus on something other than his miserable state. Now, as we try to undo that habit, it’s just a battle each time. And the temptation is to just give in for now and try again tomorrow. Taking away this distraction is seriously testing our patience.

As adults, we have distractions too. And it’s pretty much impossible to take away those things, voluntarily. Our thing is television. Take that away and I think we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves. Chances are we would replace it with some sort of game on the iPad. I could picture myself sitting there in silence trying to avoid wanting to catch up on episodes of The Office. My mind would strategize a way to watch it on the internet. But eventually, all of that work would lead me to think it’s just easier to watch it on tv… it’s a sign of my thin patience.

Another footnote here is how I don’t like to wait for parking spots. I figure just parking in the first place I find is quicker than waiting for one that’s closer. Plus I hate creeping up behind people returning to their cars… it’s just creepy.

There’s going to be something today that you’ll have to wait for whether it be a coffee or a stoplight. See if you can just wait without looking at your smartphone or fiddle with something.

realizing you can’t

This morning in the shower as I was gathering my thoughts for this particular entry, I’ve begun to picture what my life would be like as a writer. There are a few ideas I have for screenplays and a bunch more for some sort of coffee table book. I found out there’s a movie version of a book I enjoyed reading a long time ago called “Blue Like Jazz”. I thought the author was brilliant and witty (and probably high on something) but I couldn’t get over the idea that writers need to create like a sculptor does, and sell like a used car salesman. In my head I thought that great art doesn’t need to be marketed or advertised because the piece was created for the sake of creation – not profit. And too many authors today are selling out. That’s why I’ve never like Stephen King or what’s-her-face with the Harry Potter series.

We all need to keep the lights on but how much is too much? With the time I have left over, I’ve looked at our family budget and discovered I just don’t have the means to give us what we want. It’s tough enough to ensure we have enough for our needs. Could I benefit from some extra income as a freelance writer? Sure. But then it ends up taking time away from family and friends. You just can’t have it all. That feeling sucks. Kind of feels like failure mixed with despair.

I think all have things that have the answer: “I just can’t”. What do we do with that? Is it okay to just accept it and continually deal with the crappy feelings? Is it possible to celebrate the things you can’t do? What are the chances of winning LottoMax this Friday? Fortunately, the reality is that these “can’t” things aren’t solved by money — which makes the feelings are the more void of hope. Depressing entry, I know.

Understanding your limits is crucial. It’s just a hard pill to swallow sometimes.