Practice what I think!

As I approach my 48th birthday I find myself constantly evaluating my life and wondering have I still time to do something with it to give it meaning and significance.  I still can't answer the question: What are you going to be when you grow up?!,  although I have been working full-time since my 17th birthday.  So you could say I have a very strong feeling of incongruence. I have two sons whom I love deeply and dearly, the question of whether or not they feel this love on a daily basis or enough is moot. Someone once said 'Love is a verb',  this is a definition that resonates with me. So thinking about how to be a loving father will not traverse the psychic ocean into their conscious mind (or sub-conscious). Today was a good day though, I managed to sit down with my eleven-year-old and discuss the merits of tenacity in the face of a difficult homework assignment.  The central idea was that it was the process that is important and not the output.  As Thomas Edison said 'Invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration'. James Dyson (of vacuum cleaner fame) failed 5,127 times in his attempt to invent the bagless, no loss of suction vacuum cleaner.  His net worth now is £1.45billion! What if he had decided the process was too hard or would take too long?  This discussion resulted in a genuine father/son exchange of ideas and opinions that was calm, respectful and productive.  My son made time for his homework and made a good start to an assignment he had decided previously was beyond him!  He also asked me to give him a good night cuddle, this in itself was not unusual, but it had been awhile.  During the cuddle he said, 'Dad I love you'.  Pure gold, yes I think I'm tilting toward congruence!