About a week ago someone was asking me, "What's your goal as a father?" I replied "to be a safe, consistent, and reliable person that's worthy of their confidence."
The person smiled and replied, "You are such an awesome dad! How'd you come to that place?" I responded, "By my own father offering me the precise opposite. In all the encounters with my father, I don't remember a single day that he wasn't drinking vodka straight, usually with some version of violence on a spectrum happening cause he was a grumpy drunk. My goal came from a desire to not repeat or perpetuate his disconnection and suffering." After I said that the person was no longer smiling, seeming to understand what motivates and influences me.
How we get to the place where we are may not be pretty or happy... but that doesn't mean we cannot use our personal history and suffer as a kind of manure to create a better today and influence beauty in our present moment; as a reflection of the work we can do to care for our inward life and the scars we can sometimes experience.
Calligraphy note:
爸 | Bá | Father