Happy Sunday Everyone:
11 years into Sunday Thoughts, topics are all over the map. Today is more on the personal side, for those of you not wanting to hear about my personal stuff, you can stop reading now and go on with your Sunday (and enjoy it!!).
When I gave my dad’s eulogy and came to the part of him being a dad to Hillary and me, I started with “A hero to Hillary and me, two phases of having my dad as my dad, up to 18 and after 18”. In the past two weeks I’ve had Jack and Thomas both come to me with big topics and I’m realizing history is repeating itself. I’ll always be their dad but its morphing into friendship, advisor, legit guidance counselor, listener, promoter, and supporter. I’m not sure who has matured more, the two of them, or me. What I’m realizing is for any of the good lessons we taught them and had absolutely no clue if it was penetrating the walls of their thick skulls, it was. I love the Buddha’s words “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear”. I feel like everything that went into pre 18 (mostly good, and few “wish i could do that over”), are coming to fruition, and I’m grateful to see it play out.
“When the student is ready”. I could say this is about parenting, but its more universal than that, it’s about listening. Jack’s events this past week were around buying his first suit, having a big interview at his business college, and studying for a very hard test. Mainly his prep, and some of our discussions together, landed him on the right side of the interview and the test. His txt to me “I’m crushing life right now”.
For Thomas-this one blew me away. I received an email from Thomas on Monday, it said “you might like this”. Keeping in mind, school doesn’t come easy to Jack or Thomas (or their dad), it was his own version of Sunday Thoughts, he’s calling it “Monday Thoughts”. I asked him if it was an English assignment, he said “nope, i just want to start doing this weekly on my own”. I asked him if I could share. If you knew all of Thomas’s back story on school, for him to create what’s below blew Kim and I away. I didn’t think it was appropriate to “clean up” any of it so what you see below is 100% Thomas.
“Happy Monday everyone. I am now in my third week of real college but have been gone from home for more or less than three months. I have learned some values along the way. My first one is the hardest thing about school is finding the courage to ask for help. What I mean by this is that college is obviously hard and even harder when you are not the most confident person in your cognitive abilities. I was struggling with my classes and with the whole new idea of being independent but the greatest thing I have done since I have been here is ask for help. When you have someone just look over a plan or a calendar you made for yourself and tell you that it looks amazing and effective is not just a way to double check with yourself that what you’re doing is ok but also helps you build a little extra confidence that you do know what you’re doing.
I am by no means a person qualified to give advice on really anything outside of shoes and how to make poor decisions, I just think it can be cool to give perspective from someone in completely different shoes. I will recommend though to ask for help and see what is able to be offered to you for help and advice.
I play football at my college (University of San Diego) . I have been doing this whole student athlete thing for about three weeks now and it has already changed my whole life. Life is very challenging now. My days of having fun all day and stress free are very much over and I have to manage time now which is a new strategy I am learning and have had some huge help for google calendar with. The main thing that I can take away from these short three weeks is that life is hard. I think that I will eventually want no other way, when life is hard it is more enjoyable and what I mean by this is that those Sundays we get once a week feel a whole lot better than they did before. The time you get to spend with friends and family is a lot more enjoyable and you feel a little better about yourself going to bed every night.
The last thing I want to say is about my Family, I think there’s a direct impact my family has on me and anyone else that respects and looks up to their family. There are certain things each person teaches you. For example, my Papa (My dad’s dad) taught me discipline and respect, my grandmother taught me to appreciate certain things and how to tell the difference between good and bad. Papa Don (my mom’s dad) showed me how to build and make things which was my favorite hobby until middle school. My Aunt Hillary showed me how to support and protect family members and be in everyone’s corner, for example, I think if someone messed with me, she would be on a flight to San Diego in less than an hour ready to do some bad things. My Mom taught me how to listen and not disappoint people and how to help and serve others. My brother showed me how to be smart in what I do and how to make responsible decisions. The last one is my dad who has taught me how to work hard, how to be kind to others even if you can’t stand them and to always show people respect no matter what. The point I am trying to get at is appreciate what you have learned from people and keep that active in your day-to-day life and actions you take.
Takeaways
- Ask for help even if you feel ashamed or embarrassed.
- A hard life is a good life.
- Family matters and remember the importance of their impacts on you.
Thomas Marckwardt”