Prompts towards "Survive and Thrive in 2025!"

 

What I am Learning -

 In response to “Write a letter to my posterity about what I am learning – that might be useful to them.” 4^th November 2024 invitation for the week – I chose to do this at the end of this year.

Well, here I go!

The end of 2024 – I am 79 years old, plus some months –

I'm sobered thinking about turning 80 next April. 

Will my change to my new decade be discernable in grand way to me, or maybe in micro ways only?

Or not at all? And - What have I learnt?  What am I learning?

I’ve thought lots about my Dad – I hope I was sufficiently aware and compassionate to him.

He didn’t complain about a lot.  He generally “got on with it” – whatever “it” happened to be.           

He complained more as he got older – I’m learning - maybe - that was a just a part of growing older?   

I put his complaining more down to Sister Anna’s critical influence unnoticed, unresisted, by him.  

That may be an unworthy observation on my part.  There were things I admired in her!

And, I’m well aware that my own Mother was not faultless… Sadly I was acutely aware of her faults. I’m learning to see the good, true and useful that my Mother was, and that she passed on to me.      

We are all affected and to our benefit and our detriment by those around us – unless we are intentionally alert, aware, selective – hold on to their good influence, resist their poor influences… 

No one is all bad, or all good… That’s what I’m learning. (How do WE be aware of OUR influence?!)  I remember hearing “We can all learn from the devil – he never gives up trying to deceive, harm, destroy, discourage, cause doubt, undermine, and a whole lot more…”    

We can learn to never give up on our quests – hopefully keeping only the worthwhile gains. 

How to “sift and save…” keep the good, let the less worthy just flow by, be blown away in our life.

Hopefully we yield to our personal ‘refinement’ process – painful though it might be at times.  

“Mind (take care of) my own business” and allow all others the same privilege.   

(There are some few we have moral or legal stewardship for, and THAT we must take very seriously.)

 “All these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.”  

ALL these things… every day. Wherever we are, whoever we’re with… known to us, and just passing by – they can give us priceless experience and their living their lives can be an example of the unrelenting consequences of good and bad choices to us, for our benefit.   

I hope we all appreciate the well-intentioned people, and all the others, around us, every day! 

I’m learning – this is a BEAUTIFUL and AMAZING (natural) world we live in.

I hope we all appreciate day and the night, light, and dark, sunrises and sunsets, clouds, silver linings, breezes and winds, rain, the sun and sunshine, and the moon and full moons, wondrous stars, seasons, the trees, flowers, grasses and animals, creatures and insects, living, flourishing, wilting, dying, the aliveness and fertility of our amazing soil, beautiful rocks, amazing sounds – the BEAUTY and WONDER all around each one of us!  All the time!  Every, every day!  Wherever we are! 

I hope we all appreciate and care for our amazing bodies!  What would we be without them…

I hope we appreciate and are en-livened, en-couraged, or comforted and calmed, by good music, art, digital material and literature.  There is SO MUCH to choose from – I hope we are well-nourished by what we choose to watch and listen to, be influenced by, every, every day.

 There is much to be very grateful for… I hope we focus on that part of our lives.

 I hope we live each day, each week, with greater nobility, grace and dignity – ever rising to our fuller potential.  What a journey! What a life! Enjoy the ride!

 Remember always that I love you!  And am profoundly grateful for what I learn from you, with you.

The Believer - Mr Teenage Trapshut

THE BELIEVER

To believe this story you've got to believe that I'm a believer. Not just a believer. I'm a believer's believer.  I put my wisdom teeth under the pillow for the tooth fairy.  I've got a drawer full of deeds to the Brooklyn bridge and seaside property in Florida just waiting for the tide to go out far enough.  I believe in 90 day warranties on plastic toys and that someday we'll pay off the national debt.

So maybe you can see why I believed that raising a teenage son would be just more of the same things we had done together since he was a kid; hikes, and talks, and jokes, good times and an occasional stern word or two to impress some important lesson on him, and then we'd both forget what the lesson was supposed to be about.

I couldn't see any reason why we couldn't just nudge each other and poke each other right through those tough teenage years they talk about.  More funnies, more good times.  I had it all pictured in my mind.

Enter my son the sphynx. Mr Teenage Trapshut. The unknown quantity.  My good buddy turned into an alien from the forbidden land of the monosyllables.

"Hey there!  How's everything?"

"OK."

"School going alright for you?"

(shrug)

"Done anything fun lately?"

"Nope."

"How was the movie last night?"

"So so."

"It's too bad your sister's been arrested for plotting to overthrow the government, Mom's come down with beri-beri, and we found out the orange juice we had for breakfast was really battery acid." 

"Uh huh."

They say a teenagers voice changes.  Let me tell you it does.  It changes into the sound of silence.

HANGING ON

After we had him checked out for amnesia and lockjaw, his mother and I were just about to start studying sign language when one day we saw a thing in the newspaper.  It said something about hanging on because teenagers go through a lot of pressures trying to grow up.

It didn't see we had much choice, so we hung on.  It helped us to remember that he really was a good kid.  We knew that, so we figured he must be going through some kind of natural phase.  "Hang on!"  It wasn't easy.

I said he turned into a teenage tight-lip, but that was just with his mother and me.  He couldn't say boo to us, but the telephone grew to the side of his head.  Hours on end he and his friends had to discuss vital issues like did the sun come up this morning.  And trying to decide what to do and when.  Not that it really mattered.  By the time they put their skiing party together it was spring.

I could go on, but if you haven't had a teenager you wouldn't believe it, and if you have you know already.

But like I said, I am a believer and I believed that somewhere somebody must have the answers.  Why did our cuddly cub scout, our loveably little leaguer, turn into the weirdo of the world?

A FEW ANSWERS

I began to pick up a few answers here and there.  For one thing I found out why it used to be easier for us to talk together.  In those days I was his big dad; he was our little guy.  But now I noticed (perceptive parent that I had become) that I was looking almost eye to eye with him and his mother was looking up.  So how does he respond, like a big boy or a young man?  Until he can figure it all out he's a little reluctant to commit himself.

Even his hollow-eyed staring and moping around were good for something so the experts tell me.  They say he was day-dreaming.  That wasn't exactly news, but it was more than moping they said. He was mentally trying on new roles to see how they would fit, searching out in his mind and imagination the kind of person he wanted to be.

And those long drawn-out discussions with his friends on the telephone, or out by the car - those interminable debates and discussions that made the United Nations General Assembly look like a pep rally by comparison - these were useful too, they said.  What they called "getting consensual approval" for what he is going to do and say.  Then he and his friends could reinforce each other's ideas and and words so that they could tread the new no man's land of adulthood together with a little more safety in their numbers.  There was a lot more good stuff I got from the experts about what our boy was going through and why he was doing what he was doing.  

SIMPLE THOUGHT

But the greatest revelation I got from all the reading I did was this simple but profound thought.  Whether my son spoke to me or not didn't change the fact that I could speak to him.  Even if it was just a one-way communication, at least he'd know  how I felt.  And I felt that this would keep the channels open so that he would always know that I would be there if he needed me.  So one day I went to him and said "Dan," (he doesn't like me to call him Danny anymore) I said "I know a little about what you are going through.  I know that times have changed since the days of  the dinosaurs when I was a teenager.  Some things are the same, and of course, some things are different.  But I just want you to know that I know you can do it, that I love you and that I have confidence in you, and that by golly, I believe in you!"

Things have gotten a lot better around our house.  And you want to know something?  We're going to make it!  I know we are because, like I said, I'm a believer!

by Duane E Hiatt 

Father of 13 children - ten sons and three daughters

Chairman of the Communications Department

Division of Continuing Education

Brigham Young University

Focus Questions for a More Steadfast 2024

 

   Prompts Towards a More Steadfast 2024

Second Scrapbook Converted to Digital

No, my life was not wasted.

I had the chance to choose.

I'm grateful for the choice I made.