Filling your bucket.
I realized a funny truth about myself tonight. It came as I was staring intently at a YouTube video. As engrossed as I was, the ‘self aware’ part of my brain, the part that I try desperately to listen to, decided to whisper a simple truth in my ear, and make me aware of just how far I have to go in my journey.
And I felt like a total hypocrite.
Like most kids, my 17-year-old likes to watch video games on YouTube. In case you think you read that wrong, you didn’t. If you didn’t know, there are people (making a lot of money) who play video games and comment on them, and then upload them for other people to watch.
It’s a growing industry, and one that I’ve never understood. In fact, I’ve asked my son many times why he watches someone else doing something he could be doing.
And he’s never given me an answer that made sense to me.
Probably because I wasn’t listening properly. I’ve never stopped him from doing it, because it seems fairly harmless, but I may have decreased his enjoyment in something by my obvious (though hopefully gentle) inability to see its worth.
But tonight, as I sat engrossed in a really cool video made by a commercial pilot who gets to fly my dream aircraft, one that I find absolutely beautiful, I realized that I was no different than my son, it was just that our interests are different, because we are at different stages in our lives.
And so I walked over and quietly apologized to him for judging him when I had no right to. He smiled, and told me it was ok, and it truly was. He’s like that. He can forgive faster than I can judge, which is no mean feat, let me tell you.
And it made me wonder, about how much my unintended judgments may have weighed upon his choices. Unless his choice of entertainment is obviously inappropriate or destructive, what right do I have to determine what he finds enjoyable? Like I said earlier, I’ve tried very hard to support him in anything that he has wanted to do.
But I realize in sober reflection that while I may have supported and encouraged, I did not do it with an attitude of complete acceptance, and that’s a difficult thing to realize.
So tonight I decided (again) that I need to be a better father, and probably a better husband as well.
I need to go beyond just supporting my family in their pursuits, and I need to rid myself of subconscious judgment in the way that they ‘fill their emotional buckets”.
As long as they are finding peace, happiness and contentment, what right do I have to place my opinion on their enjoyment? That is denying their humanity, and deriding their dignity.
I hope I can be better.
You do you, however you want to. That’s your right, and I need to respect that.
(Post-reflection note: my wife thinks I am being too ‘sensitive’ about this, but I can’t hear her properly because I’m watching another video of the Embraer Phenom 300, which is my very favorite plane right now).
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings