Remember The Things You Did Right!

 There will be days where everything goes to hell in a hand-basket. And it will either because you did something wrong, or despite you correctly doing everything you can control.

Look at what happened. Be honest with yourself. See what needs to be fixed, certainly. But be sure to see what you did right, because you likely did a lot of things right.

Keeping your eyes on your goals, and working your plan will get you there. But life has a way of upsetting the best plans, and the world is changing day by day, hour by hour, even minute by minute. You will need to adjust your plan to match an ever changing environment.

 And sometimes that environment changes incredibly quickly. You will get it wrong sometimes. Remember the lessons and hit it again.

I feel like I'm repeating myself. So, enough of that. 

Now, this is a steal from Dean Ing’s book, Systemic Shock, where a drill instructor is having a voluntold recruit try to disarm him (the DI) in a combat situation in order to get some badly needed gear. The recruit was tricky, and almost ‘died’ in the exercise, but –But in the after action analysis, the DI summed up the exercise by saying:

“Never mind all the things he did wrong, remember everything he did RIGHT!

Yes, You Can!

"My Son" a song to live by

 

I’ve become addicted to the ‘shorts’ that come over the smart phone.

I’ve got to do something about that. Not today, though.

Fortunately, I try to feed the algorithm information for its selection of good stuff. And it works. Occasionally I get something good.

Yesterday, I heard a song with the title of, I think, ‘The Other WayAround’; the guy was singing to his son about how much the boy looks up to him, that the (the dad) is his whole world, and the dad tells him, ‘it’s the other way around’. The boy is saying, “Don’t say that. It makes me cry. I’m crying ‘Happy Tears’. I know what he means. I hate crying, even 'happy tears'.

I can’t find the song on YouTube anywhere; I find a lot of 'other way around's, just not the right one. So if you find it, please send me the link. It'll have the lyric: "He thinks I hung the moon somehow ..." Thanks.

It did remind me of another song I’d added to one of my many playlists, and I spent much of last night trying to find it (the reason for ‘many playlists’ is to categorize and keep each individual list short. Well, shorter. It doesn’t work, and I have a long list of playlists. But I digress …). The list it was in was ‘Crazy Country’, and I found a lot of other things along the way: stuff by Home Free (a great a cappella group, btw), Cotton Pickin’ Kids, Homer & Jethro.

And Elvie Shane.

This is the long way ‘round to get to my point. The song: ‘My Son’ kinda says everything about what foster/adoption is all about. It’s not just about helping the children. It’s about filling a hole in your (my) own soul.

How do I explain this without sounding selfish? I can’t, I guess. But the making of one small person’s life as whole as you can has the benefit of making one’s own life whole as well. It’s unavoidable.

Explaining this to people can difficult.

Questions: “Which one is your real child?” They are all my real children. “Well, you know what I mean.” Yes I do. And your question is impertinent. They are all my children. You are only looking for gossip material. “Bless you for the good work you do.” Depending on the source, this one perplexes me. My wife and I are not doing this for ‘stars in our crowns’. We see a need we can meet and we are meeting it. Though people on the outside see this as charity work, it’s not. Or the statement: “I don’t understand how you can love someone who is not your blood kin.” Well, I love my wife, and she’s not my blood kin. “But that’s different!” It is, and it isn’t. But how do I help people understand this?

I think the most hurtful are the statements made by family.

After the funeral for my father-in-law another family member sat with his wife and started listing the grandkids. And left our adopted kids off the list. (I don’t think the person realized I was sitting there.)

That hurt.

I didn’t call attention to it at the time; like I said, this was the day of the funeral for my father-in-law. Nothing would have been served by my mentioning this person's omission at the time, no matter how low-key I voiced it. Mom-in-law knew the truth in any case, as one of my daughter’s children had been living in the home as sort of supercargo while my wife had been helping dad-in-law take care of mom-in-law. It’s all water under the bridge at this point.

However, that child, my grandchild, is now eighteen  and will graduate High School in thirteen days. Scary. She makes me proud.

Yeah, we fight, but we make up. I scold her, encourage her to do better. Take her to task. She takes me to task sometimes.

 Later today I’ll most likely be helping her with one last Physics assignment, and the teacher that I am, I won’t be letting her slide through it. I’ll be helping her understand how this relates to the real world around her.

And, like the arrows in the hand of a mighty man, I will help launch one more child into the world.

World, you have been warned, here comes another Hansen!

And you, child-now-grown, fly straight and true. Know that I love you, and you have added as much and more to our lives as we have given to you.

That’s the nature of generosity: as you help someone else, you build strength in yourself.

I don’t understand it; I only can state from experience that it is true.

Be Generous. Take a kid under your wing.  

Yes, You Can!