Author: Ethan Bethune

Ethan lives in Alabama with his shelter dog and cat, Simon and Francis.

Intentional

History repeats itself …

Short term debt cycles
Long term debt cycles
Our habits and our emotions drive us …
Consuming for what we want right now
Credit and credit cards
Increased power to purchase
without increased income
Betting that our future self will pay it off…
Inflation
Recession
10 years
40 years
The middle class gets squeezed
Stops spending money
Starts paying off their debts
Driving inflation up
And recession
The poor just try to survive
The wealthy have assets
So they are still able to get loans etc
When the banks foreclose or call on debts
They are able to pick up the pieces
Capitalism is the consumer….
There is no evil entity
70 percent of our economy is small business and consumer habits…
Be intentional
Know where you are going and why
Control your future
Or your habits will control you …
——
If you’re calm
Constant
Consistent
Know where you’re going
The long nights
The early mornings
They all will be worth it
——
Watch the morning
The fall come in
Watch the seasons change
You’re making your future
You’re arriving
You built this
Together
With changing habits
——
I’ve been fortunate
I haven’t always been the best I could be
I was dishonest
I lied
I drank
I wasn’t my best
I’ve been forgiven of much
I didn’t go to college
I worked since I was 14
And with my father before that …
But I’ve been given second chances
I have a family
I have a home
I’m building
And I’m thankful ….

What else is there?

-E

Forge ahead

What does this have to do with you and your goals ?
Maybe some days feel a lot like Monday and it feels like the world is off it’s track …
Everything is demanding your attention…your comment …
What does it have to do with you and your goals?
Forge ahead…
Someone said I should be angry because my tax dollars …
Forge ahead…
I should be angry because …
Forge ahead …
I woke up, purchased more shares, asked about parental leave (turns out I get six weeks leave) and I’ll purchase more shares for my son…
Building consistency
A legacy…
Forge ahead…
I know I don’t have the answers
I know I’ve made mistakes
But the way I see it,
The best way to protect and secure the future is to forge it…
Be responsible to it …
Maybe I came from nothing in material things …
But my son will inherit a legacy
And we will give back
And we will raise a standard of pride and excellence and responsibility
To ourselves and our community.
What else is there …
The world is off its track demanding your comment …

What does this have to do with you and your legacy?

-E

Intention

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

Sober

This is sober…
Almost a year …seven months…
This is fatherhood…
This is …
This is getting your life on track.
Getting your health on track
Your finances on track.
Loving and supporting and being loved and supported.
It’s sacrifice,
Long days,
Long nights,
142 miles a day commute.
This is figuring out what you want your life to be…
What you want to leave behind
What you want your son to see .
I was drinking everyday
It was easy and most people didn’t know it …
I looked terrible
I didn’t like the way I felt
I didn’t like the way I acted and I didn’t like myself …
I was always trying to stop
Like trying a budget
Or a diet …
But that’s not how progress is made…
And then I met this girl
And we stayed up all night talking about what we hoped our lives would be
Our goals were very similar
It was things we could pray about
I called her one night and told her I was going to go a week without drinking…
I felt better
I went two weeks …
I got a promotion at work
The culture at my job was one I could align with
And it pushed me to be better and improve and be right and true
And tell the truth …
I knew I needed order in my life
And that drinking was just a short cut
It would cost me in my health down the road …and it was costing me in my finances right then.
I went a month …
I just never picked it back up…
I don’t want my son to see me like that…
Taking short cuts…
I want him to see the work
The dirt
And the win.
The right and true.

Be right and do right.
It’s a long road …
It’s harder and longer than you think it will be…
But it’s worth it.
The win is worth it
no short cuts…
No one can take this from you.
This is yours.
This life,
This future,
This here and now.
-E

Decades

I’ve been here for so long now

Even the shadows are years…

——

The press and the prince of peace

The rust and nightmares in my sleep

They all drink together

But I’ve still been sober

I’ve gotten over

Whatever it was …

It was lost in the rush of drafts

And forgotten notes

On my typewriter and guitar …

—-

Whatever you think you are

However far you’ve come

Just wait

Don’t be the fool at the gate

Giving it all away

You’ll surprise yourself

There’s still time to change

Just wait

——

I’ve been here so long now

Even the shadows are years

——-

They will put you in first

Pour you a glass

Pat you on the back

Hurry up kid

Join our sadness

We feel the same as you

Sorrowful clown

But the years turn to decades

Weekend for weekend

Nothing ever changes

Only

Your sorrow to anger

Your affection to addiction

You’re stuck now

——

Get out kid

Get born

It’s inside of you

The thing you’re looking for

In the world

At the end of the road

At the bottom of the glass

It’s inside of you

The change you need

The strength to shoulder the burden

Of simply living and bleeding

Walking and sleeping

Eating and loving

And if you are leaving

——

I’ve been here so long now

Even the shadows are years

You have everything you need

The worst has already been written

The best is in beginning

But the courage is in the finish …

– E

Concrete Rain

The lights of the evening sunset, run across my car as I drive down 280 in this, a concrete city… a city that was called a magic city…

Only now it’s beginning to rain…

The colours run…

We vacationed in lieu of breaking up …

That’s what I think I wrote somewhere …

Channeling Didion… “in lieu of divorce…“

We went swimming in the ocean

We went swimming in heated pools

In ice cold pools

The sun and the sand burned our skin

The riptide and current and salt

The pools

Cooled us down in the evening

I didn’t drink

I am still sober here

I am trying here

Trying not to run

Trying to face something

The thing inside myself

The fear outside myself

I am trying to write again

A true sentence

Without delusion

Just a truth …

We stand on the outer edges

Looking in

On ourselves

Waiting on a drop

An echo of cutlery on the floor

A raised voice

A shadow of something we’ve thought we’ve seen before

A reason to leave

To return to familiar loneliness

To return to something else

I am 32 here

Soon to be a father

What will my son learn from me?

What did I learn from my father?

Without trying ?

Between the spaces ?

Between the sentences ?

The silent places …

Let there be a hope

A space for truth

A space for patience

Let there be a space for love

For love

For courage

Don’t fall with me

Don’t

Just stand

In this silence

The beating heart

Words on paper

Light in sunset

Across June

32

Becomes time

Time is fleeting …

Oh son …

We are not infinite

We don’t get all things back

We try to stand cautiously or chaotically

Live live live they say…

Or fear fear fear

Even trying not to make a mistake – you will…

And trying to live as tho you want to drink every wine …you will be drunk and lose the moment and memory…

Just stand patiently and be prepared for opportunity …

And ride with the sunset…

Know who you are…

Know who you are

-E

Elijah

There’s an old story of Elijah hiding in the cave …
He believed he was finished
He was the only one left
He would stay there and die
The earth was finished
Everything was hopeless
—-
We overlook
How the Lord had fed him all along the way
Seeing that he was burned out
fed him 40 days and nights
with him all that time…
—-
And we overlook
How he brought an earthquake
And a wind storm
A pillar of fire but the Lord wasn’t in any of it …
He was in the calm…
——
Remember who you are
The quiet
The calm
The ability to adapt
To create
To hold
And to know…
To know…
—-
Build your life
Quietly and assuredly
There are no shortcuts
The world is not ending
You are not alone
You
Are
In the calm

  • E

Shipwrecks

Bob Dylan

Strange things have happened
It’s all happened here before
It’s just the ghost of old shipwrecks
Passing by your doors
—-
Sleep in peace tonight
There’s nothing new under the sun
Take your hand from your gun
This too shall pass
Sleep in peace tonight
The wolves are howling
The nightmare is crawling
Over your back pages
It’s gonna leave its mark
And these passages soon will be read
The world is not falling
It’s only turning
the ghost of the past
That old hangman
That old dust bowl
That famine
And recession
The flies that nag
The dog that bites
The tempers flared
Like shots at the moon
The stars are falling
Falling over Alabama tonight
It’s all been done before
Look out kid
They’re digging up the interstate again…
This too shall pass
Keep you hand off your gun
Do right be right
Don’t take short cuts
You will short yourself in the end …
Do right be right kid …
You’re just in the foyer
The world is just beginning …
Strange things have happened
Where’s all our Dylan’s
Standing by the road …
Do right be right kid
The words will come and they will go…
The Phoenix destroyed your kitchen stove
Cut down a tree with its fist
Its words you dismissed
Don’t short yourself
There’s no easy way out
There’s only to endure and be true
And let the words come
And when they come
Thank them
And let the words go …

-E

Legacy

It takes vision
——
Only you can see it…
So you have to carry it
And cast it everyday
——-
Why’s it so hard?
Why’s it everyday?
Why’s it changing me?
Why’s it breaking me and rebuilding me?
Why does it ask so much of me?
——
Because it’s not about today …
——
Well,
You’re not getting …
——-
It’s not about today…
——-
But you should be …
——
It’s not about today…
——
You deserve ….
——
It’s not about today ….
——-
It’s about the back end…
It’s about the future…
You’re fighting against yourself
Your future self
Your humanity
——
It’s going to take everything you’ve got and then some…
Fresh fire
Fresh faith
Fresh discipline
Fresh vision
daily
To get you there …
This is about the future
Your future
——
Are you building leaders?
Are you adding value
Or are you watering down your values
Your principles
Your vision ?
——
Stay the course !
This is your future
Your vision
No one else has it
No one else sees it
Because it’s you…
Your family
Your children
Your future
——
It’s not about today…
It’s about the future …
The legacy you’re leaving behind
You’re building that daily…
Start building …
——
What else is there?
——

-E