Just me and my boys.

Today I was blessed to be able to spend the entire day with my sons. With my hectic work schedule I it is rare that I take a day off that does not involve travel, getting ready for travel or work around the house. Today was different since my job was to 'keep the kids entertained' while my lovely wife did last minute prep for a conference this weekend. Good news is, I have this job for three more days. These are the days that make fatherhood the best job on the planet - talking to my sons, watching them use their imaginations in wonderful ways, seeing how much they have grown, being able to help them when they get frustrated and getting the spontaneous hugs that kids give just because 'you are my dad'. I know it will not always be this way, that some day they will barely notice me as they are on their way out the door with their friends, but today is today and I had that rare moment to take it all in without an overriding schedule of places and things. Just me and my boys.

We are.

While this is not a sports blog, I will occasionally reference sports (since I am a sports fan). This week I saw the Phillies lose the World Series to the Yankees, Penn State look awful in a loss to Ohio State (saw that one in person), and the Eagles lose to the Cowboys. The football match ups included intense rivalries and the baseball match up; well, it was the world series and WE were playing the holier-and-more-expensive-than-thou team from New York.

Which brings me to my point.

We.

We.

That small two letter word has much significance. Everyone uses 'we' when talking about their team, their group, their Alma mater, their company, etc. It is not just shorthand that saves us from using the longer proper name, it is a connection word, letting the listener know exactly where our loyalties reside.

We.

It identifies us with a group of like minded individuals.

We.

It binds us together so that our abilities, our power, our figurative voice and at times our actual voice can be amplified tenfold.

We.

One of my favorite parts of going to a Penn State game is the stadium cheering WE ARE! - PENN STATE! Having 100,000 people cheering anything in unison can be pretty powerful. More so it is the meaning behind the cheer that gives me chills. The cheer is not just for the team that is taking the field, it is for everyone who has that connection to Penn State. Everyone's connection is going to be different and unique, but WE are all standing and cheering together not just for a team, but for ourselves and for each other.

We.

We are.

Perspective

Had a challenging day at work - typical stuff: stress from the boss, too much work, too little time, clients that will not answer or return calls. Frustration sets in and I get to gripping the steering wheel and the phone that much tighter. Then I get the call - buddy in another location that asks if I heard about the accident involving one of our trucks Monday afternoon. Everyone is alive, but it could have been MUCH worse. Horrible, scary and totally avoidable. Then I start feeling slightly embarassed for wasting emotional energy on the small stuff when people I know are dealing with much more serious situations. Why do we have such difficulty keeping perspective on a day in - day out basis? It seems to ebb and flow with whatever is going on at the time rather than being measured on a fixed scale. This is the real challenge of my day - finding a way to keep perspective today, tommorrow and beyond. Something to work on now once.

Indisputable

The only sure thing is uncertainty. Oh, there is that death and taxes saying, but the reality is that even it is only half right (before civilization there were no taxes, and if civilization ever breaks down into anarchy there will most likely not be any taxes again). We are constantly striving to insulate, insure, prepare and plan so that things will be as we want them to be. In the end, what happens is dictated by so many variables beyond our control that all our efforts seem laughable. One could say that even when things go right it is at best half due to our actions and half due to chance. That being said, why do we not just throw up our hands and let the tide take us where it will? It is the challenge, the fight, the contest, the game if you will that keeps us engaged and always working the next angle. This is our nature. Our successes, our failures, our greatest moments of compassion and our darkest moments of destruction have all come as a result of this. Some of you are thinking 'if this is our nature, then this is a sure thing and your argument collapses in on itself'. There has always been a minority of people who have given up on the challenge. If that minority becomes the majority, if there are more people willing to drift on the wind and let others dictate thier path, then we will all be lost. Some would have you believe that this would create more certainty, that fewer people making big decisions would stabilize things more. I beleive that this would only serve to magnify the destabilizing consequences of the aforementioned chance. To boil it down - uncertainty on a small. personal scale can be overcome, delt with and absorbed without widespread chaos, but uncertainty on a large scale can be catastrophic with little chance of recovery. Remaining engaged is the only way we can have any hope of continuing the advancement of civilization as we know it. Game on!