I feel very lucky
And I feel very overwhelmed by the awesome responsibility of being a father …
Raising a son and sending him off into adulthood…
I consider how much I struggled and tried to figure out
Even the small things …
Shaving, picking out a suit,
How to budget, how to invest, how to save …

Gladwell said it takes 10,000 hours to master a new ability or skill….
But in our time…
By the age of 21
We’ve clocked 10,000 hours playing a video game or binge watching a tv show …

Psychologist say we’re stuck in adolescence pushing it to 24 …
Failure to launch…trial independence ending at 29…
How
We love the story of the prodigal son…
Irresponsible and coming home to a fathers love …
Only in our time we have sons waiting for fathers to come home, to take on responsibility…to stop drinking …to stop leaving…
——
Is this what we came here for?
Young men
Stumbling into adulthood
Not really quite sure where it begins
And what to leave behind
What to sacrifice
And what to take up as responsibility
What the worth is…in living this way…
——
Intention
——
It’s quiet
It’s just knowing the process
And trusting it
It’s holding eachother accountable to success…
To pride and honor
To responsibility
So we leave no one behind
We don’t stumble forward …
It’s walking with each other and teaching the processes, how to step into adulthood …
So I have this window of opportunity…
I have maybe ten years to prepare for this …
But if I’m selfish …
I’ll miss it…
——
I’ll miss it with what is easy…
What is comfortable …
I’ll miss it…
—-
Don’t miss it…
You only get so much time …
10,000 hours
Maybe it’s not enough to just send them out…
Maybe it’s more …
Maybe it’s showing them how to live
How to question
How to understand
How to fix the broken things
How to know the worth of things and not just the cost …
How to move into adulthood ….

So I feel very lucky …
And I feel overwhelmed by the awesome responsibility of being a father …
Maybe we all feel this way …
But there is time to prepare
If you only take advantage of the opportunity. No it won’t be easy. But it will be worth it. What else is there?
-E