This is more for me than anyone else. When a significant source of your life purpose meets challenges, it‘s a good time to rethink and look for ways to grow through it. These are areas where I feel a man finds purpose, and I will be spending time exploring them in more depth for myself. Maybe I’ll share it.
1. Open-Hearted Love – The capacity to love fully, without walls, while respecting your own boundaries.
This kind of love puts others first before ourselves. Or at least tries to live that way. I don’t mean to suggest that is an easy road, but when you find your own greatest joy in the deep joy of another, that’s open hearted love. Hold onto it.
It is also the kind of love that appreciates, desires, and grows closer because of our imperfections. It appreciates our differences, not just looking for complete compatibility, appreciating how we see the world differently and exploring that gracefully, tenderly, lovingly. In a life lived together that is 90% compatible and 10% unique, the differences should not drive you apart. Peferction is not possible, it is a destructive illusion. We can learn to love our differences, not resent them. That is one of the deepest aspects of true love.
2. Devoted Fatherhood – Being present, guiding, and loving the next generation (or those you mentor).
Many of us struggle with this as we instinctively live how we were raised, following he lead of our models. We should work to understand where our parenting models loved us well, and where they fell short. Work on those areas, make it intentional, and you’ll change generations behind you.
3. Kept Promises – A commitment you live by, no matter the cost.
If anyone thinks keeping promises doesn’t come with a cost, try living in that lane. That kind of life includes commitments to yourself, your wife, children, friends, work life, God, our country, and more. There is something deeply settling, weighty, about making this our life rhythm, it can be our steady safe harbor no matter what life brings. No matter the storms that come, or how the tide ebbs and flows in our life, we can always keep our word. Honor those we love. Stand behind our promises to them.
4. Meaningful Work – Work that helps someone and gives your days weight.
I wish this for everyone. Do something that makes the world better and you can support your family. See our work as service beyond ourselves, and it adds meaning to our lives. Don’t let it become the main thing however.
5. Being a Warrior/Poet – Mastering strength and sensitivity; fighting for what’s right while crafting beauty, wisdom, and truth from life.
Expand what our lives mean beyond just provider and protector, to include poet. Both metaphorically and actually a poet. Build, create, write, draw, paint, dream. be fully a warrior, and fully a poet, and life will hold much deeper purpose.
6. Kindness and Courage – Living openly and kindly every day, and standing firm when storms come.
Ask your wife if you are fundamentally kind to her, if kindness is almost always your first and most basic heart felt response. If she sincerely says yes, you are in a wonderful place in life. If it’s something that she cringes over even a little bit, there is deep work to do there. Our kindness comes from our heart. From the mouth, the heart speaks. Find the places in your heart where kindness struggles to rule and heal them.