Notations On Our World (Special Edition): #RandomThoughts On This #FathersDay2021

 

It is Fathers' Day here in the United States.     Our team chose the following #RandomThoughts we present as we extend Fathers' Day Wishes to all the wonderful Fathers':

Happy Father's Day! Dad, this Father’s Day, I hope you feel honored by your kids. I also hope you’ll make it more than a day to open gifts and sit in your easy chair. Celebrate the relationship you have with your children: Tell them how proud you are of them, what being a dad means to you, and how important they are to you. And take a moment to reach out and appreciate your dad or another father figure in your life. It blesses him, and it’s good for you! Father’s Day can also be a day to recommit yourself to being a great dad. Make a simple but life-changing pledge to do your best for your children every day. That’s much easier said than done. But you know that being a good dad is one of the most important threads that runs through many different challenging issues in our country. And if we can get fatherhood right collectively—being involved, consistent, aware and nurturing dads—together we can help solve a lot of social evils. I know many dads are struggling to overcome a painful past. And a lot of other guys are hampered by distance from their kids and hostility with the kids’ mother. Those are very real challenges. Still, I hope you will hold in mind the privilege that it is to be Daddy to your children. In some cases, doing your best for them might take all the courage and strength you have. But if you don’t do it, who will? Dad, you can do it. And they are worth it! Enjoy today. And keep up the good work! Ken Canfield, Ph.D.

When the pandemic hit—as with all sudden or unexpected life events—people responded in myriad different ways. Some people denied it. Some people hoped to be exempted from it. Other people cowered in fear of it. As you likely saw among your own peer group, none of these responses were particularly effective.

When we talked to Jocko Willink on the Daily Stoic podcast a few months ago, he described the only type of people among his client base of businesses and nonprofits and military leaders who had managed to thrive during these unusual times. They were the ones who accepted the reality of the situation immediately. Unflinchingly.

They didn’t deny it. They didn’t run. They didn’t expect magical thinking to rescue them. No, they got to work. Remember the imperative of the Stockdale Paradox—influenced as it was by Epictetus: You accept with complete honesty the perils of the obstacle in front of you. You remain convinced that if it is possible to survive, not only will you, but you will also turn this into the best thing that ever happened to you.

It’s essential that we do not mistake this realism, this fatalism, for passivity. Because it is not. However, there is no progress without first accepting the particulars of the circumstances in which you find yourself. Lying, denying, pretending, hoping that something—anything—will save you beside yourself is a fool’s errand.

You have to face it. You have to see the reality. Then you get to work.

Watch our full interview with Jocko Willink!