I'm just now beginning to realize how much I'm like my Dad. Sometimes it trips me out--now, in my adulthood-- to see my parents up close after living states away from them for over a decade. To really see how they are outside of how they are as my parents is at once fascinating and a little freaky. That I'm so much like both of them (in different ways) says a lot about both/either the power of the nature argument (I'm so much like them even though we've been apart for so long) and the nurture argument (what I learned from them at a young age about how to be in the world stuck hard through my late teens, 20's, and early 30's, even though they were far away).
Anyway, the point is that I have a lot of things in common with my Pa. But taste in reading material is not one of them. Mostly, my Dad reads books from the business/management section of the bookstore. Mostly, I'd rather chew on rusty nails (a lil Tapatio and we're good!)
So I probably cringed ever-so-slightly when, after Thanksgiving dinner, my Dad busted out a copy each for my bro and me of a book he'd read recently and which he thought we both might find beneficial. It's just the same knee-jerk reaction I have to EVERY business book, though. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate the gesture or trust him. I was actually pretty excited to check out a book that my Dad thought I would like. I feel like--now that he knows me better as I am in my adulthood--it would probably get to me on some level and in a positive way.
Today's New Activity: Business Book Reading on the Pop's Recommendation
I've only read the introduction so far, but I can see that it'll hold my interest just by the things the author promises NOT to do, which are all the things that put me off about the thought of business how-to books in the first place. I'm looking forward to discovering what I can learn from it...
Total, off-the-subject sidenote. Jeez Louise am I grateful for today, even with the emotional ups and downs the afternoon brought. Outlook: hopeful, strong, unflinching, joyful, alive.
And as an off-the-subject sidenote to THAT sidenote: last night I chanced upon a blog I wrote a number of years ago that I'd forgotten, but which I found incredibly relevant today. "Deathbed Therapy," it seems to me, might be worth revisiting about now...Though I do feel I've lived the past year in a way that I won't ever regret, I see that there is plenty of room for improvement in that area.
As far as we know, we only get one shot at this, folks--this life thing. I hope you're living in a way that makes you feel fulfilled, peaceful, and proud when you go to sleep each night. I'm working on it myself....
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