Fatherhood – Page 6 – Serenity Through Sweat

Mountains

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I have spent a lot of the last week (and the last nine months) snuggling a sleeping Speedy. I’ve tried to be productive with that time while also enjoying and appreciating the one on one time in his first year.

Productivity, with a sleeping infant strapped to your chest, and a rambunctious toddler in the other room who has a new found habit of screeching like an underfed seagull, is a relative term.

It mostly involves trying to stay away from social media or news feeds, and reading books, blogs, or otherwise useful forms of information. My most recent literary journey is Frank Herbert’s Sci-fi classic DUNE.

Published in 1965 Herbert transports you to a political and economic struggle between great houses on a desert planet called Arrakis. As the major players in the realm jockey for power, Herbert weaves in some unconventional wisdom that retains relevance decades past publishing.

“Any road followed precisely to it’s end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it’s a mountain. From the top of the mountain you cannot see the mountain”

This cold open quote at the beginning of a chapter brought to mind so much of what the last nine months has been like. A road to nowhere, inability to see the mountain we’ve been climbing, and it made me think about being a father in the time of a pandemic.

The runs this week all nasal breathing. It’s not natural yet, but it is starting to get easier.

I have been very blessed to be able to spend much of this time with my family. Watching my boys grow and learn, day in and day out is a privilege that many fathers forfeit in the name of financial responsibilities. Day in and day out growth and change is a bit like the mountain, you can appreciate other peaks and valleys from the top but not really the mountain itself. It is only from the starting point and during the ascent that you can really see the mountain.

Speedy was born at home at the beginning of all of the Covid craziness. Now, nine months later, he is crawling across the house and starting to pull himself up on low surfaces, despite his precarious lack of balance. He babbles loudly and often enough to make himself heard in an already loud family, and much to his mother’s chagrin, has become quite adept at using the few teeth he has cut.

I’ve watched El Duderino grow into his role as a big brother in a way that is as tragically humorous as it is inevitable, mimicking the relationship I had with my younger brother at that age. I’m sure my mother warned me about this, something or other about karma, I was too busy practicing wrestling moves on my brother to pay close attention.

El Duderino flips effortlessly between roles as his brother’s keeper and a toddler adjusting to sharing. He can be heard screaming “no he’ll choke on that”, snatching up small toys out of his brothers grasp, and also “stop that man!” As Speedy crawls towards him, eyes filled with a curiosity and wonder only seen in a newly mobile child.

Looking back across nine months, the mountain is tall, and the climb has been as exhilerating as it has been arduous. That perspective only applies when thinking back to the beginning. Each day examined on its own, seems more like a comedic rerun of the last, rather than an integral part of the mountain trail.

I hope I can maintain mindfulness and appreciation for the many mountains I will climb alongside my family. I hope that I can instill the importance of that perspective into my sons’ young minds. I hope that we all acknowledge the view from the top without forgetting to recognize the trials and triumphs of the climb.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Tradition

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. With Christmas behind us, I was thinking about all of the things I did growing up with my family, and the things I want to do with my family now. I started to wonder, what makes a tradition?

By definition, a tradition is “an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior”. Basically anything we pass on to the next generation is a tradition.

Upper thigh parade in the new shorts for the 2020 Christmas Half Marathon

The creation of, and passing on of tradition is a powerful responsibility. I think it is important to not only explore the actions and behaviors that we are passing down themselves, but also the why behind them.

This year marked the ninth annual Christmas half marathon. What started out as an excursion in masochism and mindfulness to combat being alone on Christmas, has turned into something more.

Speedy and El Duderino ready to get the festivities started.

In 2012, after signing up for Ironman Florida to take place the following November, I ran 14.5 miles on Christmas day. While keeping my training volume up after a recent half iron triathlon and a century ride, the run was really about being on call over Christmas and not being able to see family.

As a charter pilot and particularly one junior at the company, I spent the next several years running half marathons on or around Christmas, either in different cities or on hotel treadmills. Finding solace in street, and comfort on the concrete, I pounded the pavement to combat the rising tide of frustration, emotion, and solitude that went hand in hand with professions that work through holidays, especially away from home.

Milk, cookies, carrots, and our letter to Santa

This pattern continued from 2012-2016. Five years, five half marathons, mostly a steam pipe venting pent up holiday emotions while working away from home. Then in 2017, El Duderino was born at the beginning of December. In addition, my grandmother passed right around Christmas in 2017.

I was planning on being home for Christmas 2017 one way or the other. But that year I was home with my wife and newborn son. I was in-between jobs on a sick time paid paternity leave from my prior charter job, and getting ready to start at a new airline that would be my career dream job. With a three week old baby, a well accumulated sleep debt, and the emotional toll of a lost family member very fresh, the pavement was calling for a whole host of new reasons.

2 is 1, and 1 is none, has never been truer than when your toddler takes your roller after you’re done running 13 miles. Thank God for backups

What started as an escape from solitude and an outlet for frustration, had changed with my growing family. There is a clarity that endurance challenges offer in a way nothing else can quite match. Whatever stresses or anxieties you lay on the alter of repetitive cardiovascular motion can be alleviated with the proper offering.

Over the past few years, managing my holiday schedule has become as much about being home with my growing family, as it is about making time to log those miles. My physical, mental, and emotional state has been different each year, and what I needed to get out of the run has been a little different as well.

A bold strategy for the days preceding the half marathon.

One aspect of SerenityThroughSweat is the process of working through those demons out on the pavement, in search of being a better person. The tradition of a Christmas half marathon, has helped me in what can be, despite it’s many joys, a stressful season.

Long distance running during the holidays has become an established pattern of behavior for me. While I would love to see my boys pick up and ultimately pass on that tradition, the run is just the mechanism and the reasons behind it, serenity, clarity, solace, relief, are what is truly important. I hope that those are the thoughts, behaviors, and actions, that are passed down through generations. In the end, I hope that I can raise young men who are capable of finding their own path to serenity, and making their own traditions

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Mayday

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week we celebrate El Duderino’s birthday. As I reflect on the past year of his life and all the growth I’ve seen, what sticks out the most is his behaviors surrounding help.

Mayday is a word most aviators hope never to have to use. It is the international radiotelephone distress signal, and when repeated three times it indicates imminent and grave danger, and that immediate assistance is requested.

The origin of the word mayday comes from the French, M’aidez, which is help me. Obviously there is a change in tone, connotation, and level of urgency when alternating between the two, but that is kind of the point. The difficulty as aviators, as parents, and as humans, is knowing when to ask for help and knowing when to say mayday.

This is a hard enough distinction for somewhat self reflective psuedo adults (yours truly), much less toddlers. When should I ask for help, who should I ask for help, and especially how should I ask for help, are all critical communication skills we could all improve upon.

El Duderino is at a stage where he wants to do things himself, but also needs a significant amount of help. He isn’t shy about asking for help, but it often comes in the form of a mayday like call from across the house. The desperation fills the room regardless of whether or not the situation demands it.

I’m left trying to parent the situation determining what the issue is, what type of help he needs, and if he needs to adjust his communication method before I provide such help. It is a lot to evaluate and even more to try to pass on to a toddler. Add on to that the fact that I’m still a little confused on what is the best way to approach the topic of “help”

In the bewildering and convoluted web that is modern masculinity, we end up with lots of different positions on help. Providing help to others, super manly. Needing help yourself, not so manly. Yet somehow admitting you need the help and actually asking for it, is somehow manly.

Picanaha, bacon wrapped scallops, and pork belly burnt ends birthday dinner

What is it about needing help, asking for help, accepting help, and providing help, that drives men of all ages to such silly mental gymnastics.

I won’t try to speak for all men, but I think for me it has a lot to do with conflict, like we talked about last week. There is value and growth to be found in conflict and struggle, and bypassing or shortening the conflict with help, could otherwise bypass or shorten the growth.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that tiny driving force called ego that gets in the way. Mine has certainly gotten me into a fair share of trouble often times because I was too proud to ask for help.

Speedy making friends at El Duderino’s birthday

When I do dig myself into enough of a hole that even my ego needs bailing out, I still struggle to ask for help. The request tends to mimic an old Dave Mathews song and my “grace is gone”. (Not that I have ever been accused of an abundance of grace to begin with)

Asking for help is an essential human behavior, and like most behaviors, it can be taught, learned, mimicked, and improved. Parents of toddlers know all too well how behaviors good and bad can be mimicked.

As El Duderino reaches his third birthday this is a skill I’m trying to improve in myself, so that I may provide a better example to teach him.

So the next time El Duderino starts screaming for help like he is going down over the atlantic, and the reason is that he can’t cram anymore play-doh into the cab of his matchbox dump truck, I have to remind myself that this is a teaching moment, and we could all use a little help.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

A long run, a quick run, and a warm up before an EMOM kettlebell sandbag blowout

Flying Solo

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week my wife got away for her much needed escape which left me home with both boys flying solo.

This was the first time I had been alone with both boys for an overnight, and with the knowledge that no reinforcements would be coming.

Please fasten your seatbelts in case we encounter unexpected rough air

I decided to go to consult the operations manual to see what kind of helpful procedures would get me through. Much to my chagrin, there was no ops manual, (despite how many times I’ve told my wife that each child should have been birthed with one). In lieu of a manual, I decided to lean on my only other area of formal training, aviation, to help me through.

Thorough preflight: ensuring your craft is airworthy before heading up is a must. I tried to get my house in order, so to speak, before my wife left. This meant plans for activities, meal prepping dinners for El Duderino and I, and having bottles locked and loaded for Speedy, (especially in the case that he woke up in the wee hours of the morning)

Homemade crab cakes meal prepped for the duration of mommy’s excursion

Expanding your team: often times as pilots we can’t know all the information or have all of the expertise to complete the mission by ourselves. We need to rely on those around us and their expertise to arrive safely. Chic-Fil-A was a welcome part of the team and a much needed distraction for all of us. My wife also provided the idea of feeding Speedy in the car seat for a more mobile, one handed meal operation.

I’m very lucky that both boys were well behaved and (other than a quick one hour hiccup the first night) slept well. El Duderino played very well with Speedy, and was very understanding when his brother needed a little but more of my attention.

Workload Management: inevitably, some parts of the flight have significantly higher workload than others. Any work that can be done ahead of time during the low workload periods should be accomplished at those times. This meant washing and prepping bottles, rinsing diapers and doing other laundry, and even sneaking a workout and my mobility routine in was relegated to when one or both boys were sleeping.

Kids and Kettlebells, Speedy checking my simple and sinister form from the baby gates in the background

Known Threats/Expectation Bias: before every flight we try to identify potential threats to the operation. Some are internal, some are external, and some are made of our own biases. Expectation Bias is the idea that you expect something to happen and are likely to react a certain way even if the situation doesn’t happen or presents itself differently. I figured that Speedy would give me a hard time eating from a bottle since it is not the norm for him. That was what I expected to happen and when we was fussy I reacted according to that bias. So it took me a few tries to figure out that his fussiness over the bottle was really about something else.

Debrief: after the plane has landed and another day’s mission is done it is common to debrief the ups and downs normally over a beverage or two. This is a chance to learn, fix, unwind, and tell stories and it is just as important as any of the stick and rudder work. The same is true as parents, at the end of the day what worked, what didn’t, what was crazy, and what made you laugh, (and a beverage or two never hurt)

Venison neck roast tacos on the Z grill with everyone home for the debrief.

All in all the boys and I had a wonderful few days flying solo. There was no blood, minimal tears, and lots of laughs. It was a humbling experience to see what my incredible wife does everytime I go out on a trip, and I’m glad that I could facilitate some time away for her. Even without the ops manual, we managed just fine, and I found out coordinating a 3 year old and a 7 months old’s schedule is trickier than any crosswind landing.

Highlights from my wife’s well earned trip

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Questions

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Election season is upon us, my work group is in the middle of a contract amendment vote, and all of us are analyzing how we adjust to COVID-19 measures in our day to day life. To be successful in any of these or many another endeavors requires asking questions, specifically, asking the right questions.

I just finished reading Freakonomics, the book by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt. For a book that claims to have no underlying theme, it is really a book about asking the right questions before accepting information that is provided.

The various topics themselves (while interesting) are really the backdrop for the true value in the book, which illuminates why we act the way we do. Most topics start with some assumption of the outcome, and then examine the incentives in place that help shape human behavior. The authors write, “Incentive is a tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation”.

As the book goes on, the questions asked generally challenge the conventional wisdom on a particular topic. After positing a question that challenges a typically held belief, the authors then go in search of data, that is run through unemotional regression analysis to isolate variables that are correlated. The results often clash head on with the conventional wisdom

There are several examples in the book that studied early learning test scores (K-5) and various parenting statistics both active and passive (age before kids were born, education level, spanking, screen time, one parent home between age 0-5). As a parent I was very interested to find out that the most highly correlated factors affecting test scores were either genetic or socio-economic, prior to your child’s birth. In other words, your life prior to becoming a parent has more impact on your child’s early test scores, than any of the at home pre-K educational work you can do. (Not that it hurts at all, it just isn’t statistically significant)

While this information is both fascinating and relieving (my boys aren’t doomed because I travel for work), it is the question that is far more valuable. The question being, what can I do as a parent to help my children be successful?

El Duderino helping out with the post workout shake, “Ma, where’s the protein?”

The answer is well beyond the scope of this blog, (although I believe being a role model for general well-being is a great start). Asking the right questions and searching for answers, not accepting what is thrust forth against the data, is another great place to start.

The same applies to the personal well-being, diet and exercise world. There are plenty of conventional wisdom trends that have recently been upended, from high fat low carb eating, to high intensity interval training, to intermittent fasting and fat adapted endurance athletes, the data show a myriad of possibilities that were shunned just a few years ago. Again, for the scope of this blog the individual programs are less important than the questions, what am I doing to be a better version of myself? Does the data support those decisions/programs?

For all of my colleagues voting on the contract amendment, I urge you to ask yourself, what is my incentive, and have I examined the data, rather than the popular narrative?

For all of us approaching election season I urge you to ask yourself, have I researched the issues and the positions rather than the popular sound bytes?

For your own personal growth are you doing the things you can to be better than you were yesterday? I hope you will join me on the path of asking ourselves the tough questions, and maybe even getting a little sweaty along the way.

Thanks for joining me, start safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Show Up and Put In

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Today I want to talk about this year’s Sober October challenge.

I debated at first about my participation in Sober October this year. Eventually I realized that as much as I didn’t want to do it, that all of the reasons I could think of not to participate, were really just as compelling reasons that I needed to.

“Oh Hi there, I’m 6 months old” (*Speedy said as he popped out from his hiding place)

So this year’s Sober October challenge is no alcohol, no added sugar, and 10,000 kettlebell swings.

There are plenty of things written about the 10,000 kettlebell swing program and nothing I can say will add to it, especially before I have even completed it. You can find the original program here.

Kettlebell swings in and of themselves are not especially challenging. As a triathlete and an Ironman, I can certainly find beauty and serenity in suffering through repetitive motion. That said, I’m 3 days and 1,500 swings in and my forearms are shot and my glutes are on fire.

My Garmin watch died and is being replaced, so rocking the 2013 Suunto Ambit for this week’s running in-between kettlebell days.

I think the biggest hurdle when it comes to taking on a challenge of this kind, or any kind for that matter, is first just to show up, and then put in the work.

500 swings a day, 2 days on followed by 1 day off, for the month, until you reach 10,000. The beauty of the challenge is that it is binary, you either show up and put in the work, or you don’t, there isn’t really an in-between.

On day two of the challenge, speedy decided to wake up at 3:50, and El Duderino followed suit some time after 5 am. My wife was in desperate need of catching up on sleep, so it was on me to show up and put in the work as a dad. Not the ideal prelude to my 1:00pm cast iron rendezvous, but again, this month’s challenge is about showing up and putting in the work, regardless of what circumstances might arise.

Often times fatherhood feels eerily similar to these physical, mental, and emotional challenges we are faced with. Suffering through repetitive motion, with beauty and serenity to be found for those who can appreciate the struggle.

Beautiful FL fall day for some smoked picanaha and veggies on the Z grill

After all the excuses and the doubt, what Sober October is really about, is showing up and putting in the work through the repetitive motions of the day. Showing up for your spouse, showing up for your kids, and showing up for yourself. Putting in the work to be a better husband, father, and person, and maybe find some serenity along the way.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

My new best friend for the month, a 54lb cannonball

Galanin to the Rescue

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Today I want to talk about galanin, what it is and some of the many ways it helps us.

Galanin is a neuropeptide, which is fancy word for a protein produced by neurons. (don’t worry I had to look it up because it sounded more like one of king arthur’s knights to me). Galanin is found in many different parts of our brain as well as our GI tract.

A recent article in the Journal of Neuroscience, shows an increased galanin level (derived from unfettered access to cardiovascular exercise) was correlated with a conferred resilience to stress in mice.

Two groups of mice were observed after a stressful event (foot shock). The respective galanin levels were measured in each group, with the experimental group having access to a running wheel in their cage and the control group having none. After three weeks there was a correlation between the elevated galanin levels, the amount of time exercising, and the degree of stress resilience, in the group of mice who used the running wheel. (After building in the first week they were averaging 10-16km per day, if you needed some motivation for your own running)

The test then went on to elevate galanin levels in otherwise sedentary mice and the observed the same stress resilience effects. It is obvious but worth stating that people are not mice, but we do have very similar galanin receptors. This experiment shows that repeated cardiovascular exercise increases galanin, and increased galanin helps us deal with stress.

Doing further research on galanin, I found this article in Nature, which shows that increased galanin levels are responsible for regulating aggression toward pups in male mice, and increasing their tendency towards parental behavior.

I’ve always felt that I’m a better father, husband, and overall person after a good sweat session. There are obviously multiple chemicals in play there, but galanin has a big role to play. This is especially true as stress levels have been elevated these past few months, as has time with my sons without daycare.

Increasing galanin levels seems like a great thing to do no matter what, but an especially great thing with all the stresses of Covid life, and the best way to do that is some good old fashioned SerenityThroughSweat.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

The Missing Dollar

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. One of the things I struggle with the most as a husband, a parent, hell as a human, is communication. I think a lot of communication problems are rooted in perception, specifically different perceptions of the same event.

I remember first hearing the missing dollar problem on a boy scout trip. I think it was a way to quiet us down on the long bus ride between Buffalo and Washington DC. It goes a little something like this:

Three guys are going to share a hotel room that costs $30 and they each give the clerk $10. The clerk realizes an hour later that the room only cost $25 so he gives the bellhop $5 to give back to the three guys. The bellhop can’t figure out how to evenly split it between three guys, so he keeps $2 and gives each of them $1 back. So each guy originally paid $10 and got $1 back for a total of $9, and the bellhop kept $2. $9 x 3=$27 + $2 = $29, but the three guys originally paid $30, where is the missing dollar?

It’s easy to get caught up in the missing dollar. Like many word problems, the information is there, but the presentation matters. 9×3=27 +2=29 makes sense, is good math, is easy to follow and leaves a dollar missing.

But if we follow the money, the clerk has $25, each guy has $1 for a total of $3, and the bellhop has $2 so all $30 is accounted for. The cost of the room ended up being $27, $25 to the clerk with an invoultary and unknown $2 going to the bellhop. Then, each guy gets $1 back so the 25+2=27 for the cost of the room + the $3 refund accounts for all the money. The focal point isn’t the $27, it is deciding whether the bellhop’s $2, or the guy’s $3 was accounted for in that $27 based on the information given.

It’s easy to get sucked in to either interpretation of the numbers (especially the wrong one) based on your perception. Beyond being a fun math problem to stump your friends and relatives, I think that is the point.

Whether it is interacting with your spouse, your kids, your coworkers, or anyone for that matter, it is easy to get caught up in the wrong perception and fixate on “the missing dollar” of that particular situation. In the age of information, it isn’t hard to find facts or math that supports your preconceived ideas or notions. The fixation that results is often a source of the polarization of so many issues we see today.

In our example 9×3=27+2=29 is good math. It is an erroneous argument, but all of the individual components check out, it just has one piece of bad data. But without knowing, understanding, or being able to otherwise rationalize the correct information, the comfort that comes with the known math outweighs the uncertainty of not being able to explain the more reasonable answer (that the dollar is not in fact missing even though the math doesn’t work out)

Projectile therapy, and not too shabby despite time away from the stick

I see this most often in myself when I am resistant to changing my opinion even in the face of new information. The original opinion is almost always based on assumptions, information, experience, and judgement, but if any part of those inputs turns out to be incorrect, the logic putting them together still holds up. That is why it is often so hard to change our minds. There is almost always some element of truth and logic to the way we arrived at our opinion.

The next time you find yourself unable to reconcile an old opinion in the light of new information, try to find the “missing dollar” in your reasoning. You might just find some serenity along the way.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

A pair of runs and some windy rainy miles with Layla

How Far We’ve Come

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I’m sitting post run in Greenville, SC where I wrote the first edition of the blog back in mid November, and thinking of how far we’ve come.

I have an eclectic taste in music, especially for different types of workouts. There is a special dopamine rush when that perfect 90’s alt rock song comes on unexpectedly in a workout. Energy seems to materialize from the ether, and I can go from boarding the struggle bus, back to a spring in my step. Matchbox twenty’s how far we’ve come has always been one of those songs for me.

Sleepy sloth hugs art project from El Duderino

A drum solo start, a punchy guitar line, up tempo beats, Rob Thomas talking about the end of days, it’s got everything I need to sprint out the last few miles home. The lyrics seem deceptively appropriate for where we find ourselves six months into a pandemic and an election year.

“I’m waking up at the start of the end of the world, but it’s feeling just like every other morning before,” “I believe the world is burning to the ground, oh well I guess we’re gonna find out, let’s see how far we’ve come”

El Duderino taking the wheel on the walk with Speedy, while mommy gets in some bike miles

On their own and out of context, the lyrics make it sound like a sad song, one of desperation and defeat. It never struck me that way listening to it, and the music video (I don’t know if those are still a thing anymore, but they were in the 90’s and the 00’s) paints a different picture. It shows scenes of human triumph and progress like the moon landing, Muhammad Ali winning the world heavy weight title, and the Berlin Wall coming down.

There is no denying the pain and suffering that has occurred in the last six months, but look how far we’ve come. Public health and well being is now a priority on a level I’ve certainly never seen before in this country. As a nation we are having productive discussions on race, justice, and policing that are well overdue.

First time cooking in the new Z grills pellet grill. Smoked picanaha and veggies were awesome

On a personal level, I started this blog ten months ago to talk about fitness and parenting. It was as much of a personal indulgence (writing about my own endeavors) as it was a meaningful platform with a message I hope to share with my boys. I can look back over that short time and see how far I’ve come, as a parent, an athlete, and a writer.

I’ve become focused at a level I haven’t been since I was writing my thesis, not just on producing content, but also consuming it. The amount I read, fiction and non fiction, and listen to podcasts has increased tremendously. My intake of instructional posts, blogs, and videos for grappling, fitness, nutrition, and mobility has skyrocketed. Speedy, being born early on in all of this craziness, was a blessing helping me to take stock of things that really matter in my life. It also forced me to evaluate and evolve my parenting with two boys at home with no daycare.

First time on the bike since father’s day. New shoes, new cleats, and a whole lot of dropping the hammer on the last 5 miles

I’ve written before about Serenity as a journey or a series of fleeting moments, more so than a destination. I’m grateful for these post run moments of clarity where even though I’m not there yet, and I may never get there, I can reflect on how far we’ve come.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Layover miles on the swamp rabbit trail is Greenville

Duty

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I often think about what it is to be a man and what it is to be a father, specifically through the lense of communicating that message to my boys, early and often. And while the answer is nebulous and is something of a moving target, the search for the “answer” seems to always give me something I needed in that moment.

Obviously COVID-19 has dominated the news cycle and most of our thoughts recently. It’s hard to find even the simplest of tasks that hasn’t been affected at least in some way. That said, the mission statement of men and father’s hasn’t really changed. Sure the circumstances are different but the mission remains steadfast.

El Duderino not a big fan of the face shield

Which brings me to duty. In the movie gladiator, the General Maximus asks his servant Cicero, “Do you find it hard to do your duty”. Cicero replies, “Sometimes I do what I want to, the rest of the time I do what I have to”. This really spoke to me as father in these strange times.

I believe that in order to be effective at one you must be effective at the other. The two go hand in hand. You cannot do what you have to as a father without some balance of doing what you want to. Likewise if you only ever do what you want to, the things you have to do will suffer.

Much bigger fan of “mixie” the cement truck

Obviously balancing the two is tricky even in the simplest of times, which has made the last few weeks even more complicated. Too much focus on doing what you have to do, can be like trying to cut down a tree with a dull blade. Although stepping away from the tree feels like abandoning your primary duty, you are sometimes better off to step away and sharpen the saw.

Steven Covey put forth this idea in his book 7 habits of highly effective people. Sharpening the saw can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but should cover physical, mental, emotional, and social aspects.

Sharpening the saw may seem like a luxury only for those with leisure time, but it is an important part of the duty of being a better man and a father. I have always found that I am in a better mood, I think more clearly, and I make better decisions after I have trained, or completed some sort of task that would seen otherwise not mission critical.

While primary focus these last ten weeks has been on providing for the family and guiding them through these uncharted times, that has left an imbalance in doing what you have to vs. doing what you want to. The shutting down of so many activities due to COVID-19, especially ones with a social aspect, makes it ever more difficult for father’s to sharpen the saw in the same ways that they would have before.

In ever changing and difficult times the duty remains, and is more important than ever. It’s vital to remember that a part of that duty is keeping your tools sharp, and in the case of Serenity Through Sweat activities, doing what you want to, and not just what you have to will make you a better husband, father and person.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

This week’s SerenityThroughSweat, sharpening the saw with sewing, swings, and stroller runs. All alliteration aside, stay home status is starting to stagnate