Values

“Values – you can’t put a price on them, but you can sell em’ real cheap.”

 

Earlier this year, I had a bit of an epiphany about my value system. I asked myself “What if I replaced my currency-driven value system with one that is value-based?” And that question is something I’ve been asking myself ever since.

See, I think that a lot of life is driven by this idea that there’s some sort of success criteria to meet, which can often be achieved with dollar and cents (which are worth a LOT less this year than they were last…) in order to obtain some sort of status or outwardly-visible level of success.

For example, some of the common success paths in life, according to this metric:

“Hey, work real hard and someday you’ll be able to buy a house”

You mean, finance one and pay it off for 30 years while praying the market/economy goes up? Oh, and pay for the air conditioning unit when it goes down, the roof when it needs replaced and resurface the driveway to enhance the ‘curb appeal’? Well, that doesn’t sound very appealing at all. Not when there’s a 30 year-note on the line that costs more than double the ‘price’ of the house.

Curious what a $425,000 house costs when you put 5% down – which is usually amount most people can afford when ‘approved’ for an FHA loan? Look and see.

This doesn’t include household maintenance or repairs, either.

Fall behind on your payments? The bank is more than happy to evict you from your home even if you’ve lived in it for 20 years, so that they can simply re-sell it to another buyer and rack up another 1.4 million.

This blog isn’t about amortization tables or interest rates. It’s about values.

Earlier this year, I was having a challenging day because the number in my bank account was at a low point, and it began to impact the way that I felt.

“You’re a failure.”

“You’re a bad Dad.”

“You should be doing as well as the Jones next door – and you aren’t. LOSER.”

These voices began to scream at me, and then I realized something important.

“I’m not stuck at a job I hate right now.”

“I spend uninterrupted time with Atlas.”

“I call my family during the day and regularly check in to see how they’re doing.”

“I can go to the gym right now if I wanted to” – I didn’t.

“I can play my guitar right now.”

I thought of the old adage about the man who was fishing on the side of a river, when somebody walked up to him and asked him why he was fishing with a simple rod and reel when he could instead buy a boat to fish, then a fleet, and then have a wildly successful operation and enjoy being rich.

The man then asked him “Well, what would you do once you were rich?”

The other man smiled and said: “I’d come down to the river here with my fishing pole and enjoy my afternoon.

There’s a lot of wisdom that can be taken from this story, and I thought about it while going through my own miniature moment of self-induced despair.

It was then that I decided to reframe my mindset and see life through a lens of values, rather than finances. Money comes and goes, but time is the one thing we will never get back. I don’t know many people on their deathbed who wished they had more time to work. Rather, most people often think about the time they spent with their family and ponder how their life would be different if they had more of those memories.

One of the things I’m most appreciative for in my life is the time I’m able to spend with Atlas. I fully recognize the blessing it is to have the sort of work (and team) that I do, which allow me to fully devote my time to him when we’re together. There are months where finances are better than others, as well as times where I am behind on certain bills and have to scrimp, but I feel these moments are far outweighed by the investment I’m able to make by giving him my 100% attention and time.

When I was little, I remember going to a Summer camp, and my Dad volunteered to be one of the camp counselors; taking a week off of work in order to be there. As a consultant, that meant that he wasn’t able to rack up any billable hours for that week. However, he made it a priority to be at Camp McPhereson instead of some beach vacation.

Each night, the barrack-style bunk houses would erupt in a display of young-boy machismo, as all of the campers took their mattresses off of their beds and put them in the center of the bunk house to make a giant wrestling pit, where the boys would square off against each other, baring their shirtless chests and doing their best to be the strongest man in the bunk house.

Even as a young boy, I wanted to prove myself. I wanted to prove myself to my Dad that I was strong, courageous and willing to step into the ring. So, I raised my hand that I wanted to ‘fight’ and took my shirt of as I got ready to go in the ‘ring’.

I didn’t want anybody to know that I was scared. Terrified. I prayed that my opponent wouldn’t be one of the older boys that looked like they could eat me. Looking across the ‘ring’ I saw my opponent; a boy equal to my size, who traveled from Michigan to be at the camp. Ahead of our match, we stood at opposite ends of the ring and glared at each other while we sized up the other.

My Dad stepped in to referee that match as I stepped to the center of the ring to face my opponent.

I was terrified, and the adrenaline was pumping through my young veins in a way that I hadn’t ever experienced before.

In a flash, the match started and we lunged at each other, struggling to knock the other to the ground. Clenching the other, we both fell to the ground and began to roll around trying to get a position on top of the other. The boy managed to get on top of me and savagely pushed my head into the ground, while rolling on top of me.

Then I felt blinding pain in my ear and everything seemed to go dark.

That kid from Michigan had taken his elbow and drove it as hard as he could into my ear; sandwiching my head between his elbow and the mattress on the floor.

I will never forget the pain I felt in that moment. The feeling of helplessness and defeat.

I’ll also never forget how quickly I felt it go away, because my Dad jumped to my rescue and pulled the boy off of me the second he saw his foul move.

My Dad was there – and he rescued me.

It took me about 5 minutes to write this story, because the tears falling from my eyes made it hard to see my iPad screen.

I had to see a doctor on account of that kid’s move. And I remember telling the doctor about how it happened, and I burst into tears when I told him that my Dad was there to pull the kid off.

The doctor asked me if I was crying from the pain. I wasn’t. I was crying (then and now) because it means so much to me as a little boy that my Dad came to my rescue.

See, that moment meant something to me – and it means something to me even as I write this, 25 years later.

My Dad was THERE.

FOR ME.

There are a million other places that my Dad could have been during that week, and I imagine that he was probably struggling financially at the time – which was a constant theme in our family. However, my Dad had his values intact, and he chose to volunteer at a family camp instead of working at the office to bill his clients his then $75/hour rate for the work he did.

I share this because I think stories like this are worth sharing – and a rare treat when adults have the opportunity to reflect, appreciate and recognize the sacrifices their parents made in their lives that contributed to who they are as adults.

The older I get, the more I realize that life is a lot more about these sorts of moments, and they matter in our lives far more than any level of financial success, external recognition of ‘applause’ and they are the memories we will take to our deathbeds – a true heirloom that ought to be passed from generation to generation; values.

My Dad got it right, and I will forever remember him as the man that was there for his boy when he needed him.