When Bridges Blow
For some reason I don’t make too many little mistakes. When I make mistakes, I make big ones. When I fall, I don’t scuff my knees, I break bones. When I do damage to bridges in relationships, I don’t burn the bridge, I blow it up. This way of life really kind of sucks, to be honest. I have no hope of friendship usually after I leave a mistake behind – most often, the other people involved view me as an enemy.
I am the son of an amazing single mother who remarried a great man, who I now view as much my own father as anyone else would their own biological father.
No matter what my parents did for me, I was always left with a void. Not a void of lack of love or concern, but only the void that a biological father who walks away from his family can leave. Left with a feeling that regardless of how many times I was told that I was good enough or cared about enough that one of the two people that should almost automatically feel that way – didn’t. Or worse yet didn’t care. The void manifested in a constant seeking of approval from others. Ironically, the harder I tried to find approval, the more I found void. I didn’t realize until much later that this void could and would never be filled by my pursuits nor the affirmations of others.
Never wanting anyone to have the slightest negative opinion of me for fear that my “true worthlessness” (my perception created by my father leaving) might be exposed. If I could make others happy, they might let me stay around and they might continue to express that I carry some positive value. Always on eggshells, never willing to take too big of a risk. For taking a risk might leave me standing alone, the place I feared most.
I got tired of this inability to walk barefoot around others, to really share with others who I was because of the fear of exposure or failing to live up to expectations. Ok, I wasn’t tired, I was exhausted. That is when I started to make big mistakes. Huge mistakes actually. Bigger mistakes than I thought possible in my lifetime.
In an instant – Love for me turned to hatred. Friends became enemies. Sanctuaries now dangerous places.
I jumped from meek to arrogant in one leap. I started making decisions that turned into huge mistakes and before I knew it I was buried in a mass of mistakes that was suffocating but liberating at the same time. The liberation that can only come from a life of running that is suddenly no longer moving forward. Choosing to make these mistakes allowed me to take down the walls that I built around me. Arrogance took hold in a way that I said to the world – “I do not care what you think anymore.”
If I was going to burn a bridge, why not just blow it up? I quickly found, though that living on an island with blown up bridges all around is not a place anyone wants to be, regardless of how arrogant, independent, or self reliant someone might consider themselves. I needed others – we all do. Predictably, the ones I needed most were on the other side of the chasm, and now I was left without a bridge to cross.
“The life we end up with is simply an accumulation of all the choices we make.” – Darren Hardy
What I realized is that healing starts with humility. When I make mistakes, the first step is for me to own it. I apologize to God, to the people that I hurt, and I do my best to work with them at equal height (not from my knees grovelling) to rebuild the bridge I destroyed, to heal the broken bones and to move forward humbly.
“Right actions for the future are the best apologies for wrong ones in the past.” – Tyron Edwards
It doesn’t always work, but I have realized that amazing things happen when I start by accepting that I am at fault, that I am 100% responsible for my behaviors and the outcomes around me. I don’t control all of the variables, but I do control myself and most importantly my reaction to the environment that I’ve mostly created.
It takes a lot longer to rebuild the bridge than it does to blow it up. Don’t be fooled to think that the reconstruction is any less dangerous or harmful than the destruction. The process not only begins with humility but must continue throughout. I’m focusing on one board at a time, working hard to place each board correctly.
Reacting to Negativity Positively
I find it helpful for me to pick a theme for phases of my life. This theme forces me to focus on modification of one important negative behavior that I feel is detrimental to my well-being and overall happiness. For the last year or so, my theme was “Fewer and Deeper.” I was trying to do too much. I needed to trim back my life in order to focus on the people and things that matter most, focusing on fewer involvements but deeper meaning.
Now, I am going to focus on “Reacting to Negativity Positively.”
As an American, a business owner, father of a child with an incurable disease, and man trying to rebuild a marriage that was lost but that only God could resurrect, negativity hovers over me often. I’ve made enemies, sometimes deserved and others undeserved. No secret is our nation’s economic troubles; the climate for small business owners is beyond difficult to navigate. Regardless of the state of the economy, running a company can test your resilience and ability to deal with very difficult situations. They are tough shoes to stand in as you hold the financial fate of people and their families in your hands. Truly negative are the days when terminations are required.
Thick skin is not my thing. I am emotional and reactive. I believe in leading with vulnerability and humility. I hire people not employees. I live as a servant first to those around me. I don’t shy away from tough but necessary situations, but it takes a lot out of me. With this unpredictable negativity that occurs, I must strive to react with a positive attitude when facing it.
From all negative comes something positive, from death – life, in pain we grow, and in loss comes gain.
So what does this practically mean for my life?
As a North Carolina Tar Heels basketball diehard, I don’t watch Duke basketball games anymore. I realized that I only feel anger when I watch Duke. That anger doesn’t hurt Duke or their chances of winning. It only hurts me. Why do I want to subject myself to this negativity that I know I can’t react positively to?
Traffic makes me act like an idiot. Obviously, sometimes traffic is unavoidable. However, I’ve realized that there are moments in my life when I can avoid traffic. So I do.
Also, it has become clear to me that when someone cuts me off or does something crazy while driving, I get angry for one reason – They think that they are better than me or that their time is more important than mine. In all, I’ve probably lost about 3 minutes of my life taken from me by idiots who drive recklessly around me. If I could get back all the time that I’ve spent angry about losing those 3 minutes, I could have read at least 50 books that I’ve been wanting to read or watched 2000 movies I’ve been dying to see or taken my daughter to the beach 10 times.
I don’t understand why we do things that we hate, why we put ourselves in situations that we know will make us angry, why we hang around with people that do anything but make us happy, or pursue hate rather than joy. However, there is a better way and that is to pursue positive things, situations and people and when we encounter negativity to do our best to react positively. At least that is my focus for the next phase of my life.
My Daughter – Biological Creature
My 5-year-old daughter has a genetic disease that acts similar to a slow moving, incurable cancer. It is called Hurler’s Syndrome. There are only about 250 kids known to have the disease in the US, and roughly 1 in every 500,000 births. She had a bone marrow transplant in November 2010 to try to slow the effects of the disease. Honestly though, we aren’t totally sure what the benefits of the transplant will be.
Through the transplant process, Riley had approximately a 15% mortality risk. Significant to say the least. Now that we are over 1 year post-transplant, we are “out of the weeds” in terms of chances of transplant related death. This fact has not changed our lack of comfort with her having the disease.
Late last week, we found out that she has permanently lost a significant amount of her hearing over the last couple of months. This news was hard to hear. Then, she came home from school earlier this week to tell my wife that her hips hurt because they sat “Indian-style” more than a typical day. Both bone deformation and hearing loss are two of the numerous ill-effects that she will suffer throughout her life. Ultimately, the disease will attack every major system in her body (except brain which they think the transplant has halted progression in). Degradation of vision, heart issues, digestive, bone and joint, liver, and so on. The disease will continue to progress and attack her body – and there is nothing we can do but watch and treat symptoms as they come.
As an aside, we are constantly reminded of how lucky we actually are, as we continue to receive news of the deaths of some of the other children who battled alongside Riley during our time at Duke.
I am not looking for your sympathy and neither is my daughter. She is a ridiculously amazing little girl. In fact, I can tell you that not only has the disease not touched her spirit negatively – it has actually allowed my daughter to flourish in her outlook on life.
What was interesting about last week’s news is that it took us back to the time when she was first diagnosed. A genetic disease is by nature present at the time of conception. We figured things out at the age of 3. We lived with a “perfectly healthy” child for 3 years without knowing it. In one instant, we suddenly had a child that was probably in the top 1% in terms of the level of illness she would face in her lifetime. It was that day that we looked at our daughter as though she was a biological creature rather than the sweet, little girl who had the ability to run, laugh, and love. It was that instant and that diagnosis that caused us to analyze every inch of the physical being that is our daughter.
“Oh my gosh, she can’t lift her arms above her head – no wonder she has been so difficult to dress!”
“So that is the link between her minor heart problem, sensitivity to light, digestive issues, …”
And then there were things said by doctors like, “She’s beautiful…but she doesn’t look like you or her mother.”
We began to inch by inch, symptom by symptom, feature by feature, trait by trait look for her disease in everything that she was. She was now a creature of science and this would escalate to unthinkable heights before the day of her transplant. She underwent just about every test imaginable in order to establish baselines and make sure we knew about everything prior to starting chemotherapy and the subsequent transplant.
Have you ever wanted to look inside your child or yourself for preventative or knowledge reasons? We were basically given a snapshot that allowed us to see inside of our daughter – physically speaking. It would take us a few more months before we were able to really see what was inside of her, though, and we see more amazing things everyday – emotionally speaking.
Prior to transplant, doctors found fluid on her brain and spine that required immediate brain surgery and the placement of a permanent shunt in the back of her head. Had she had headaches her whole life? We would also find a hernia that needed to be operated on immediately. Finally, she had 2 tubes placed in her chest that would basically act like external veins, allowing the doctors to draw blood or give medication instantaneously and without pain.
For the year or so since her transplant, we have watched and waited for further symptoms, signs, and evidence of her disease to show up, every day wondering whether and how the transplant had altered the biological specimen that is Riley. However, what I’ve realized this week is that it doesn’t matter. Sure I still care. I absolutely don’t want her to be in pain or to not fit in or to have imperfections that cause her not to learn, hear, see, or be anything but what we all expect in our children. We all desire some sort of “normal” as long as they are to extraordinary levels. And that is just it. She has so much “normal” – to extraordinary levels.
At the age of 5, she doesn’t know that she is anything but normal. She recently started back to school after nearly a 2 year absence. On her first day back, they called her up to celebrate the birthday that had happened while she was away, “I was very sick, but I am better now.” And then she turned and did something that the head of her preschool said she had never seen happen in her years leading the school. Riley turned to head of the preschool and said “thank you.”
Riley is thankful for school, for her friends, for her family and for biological body. She gets frustrated with her limitations from time to time. Of course she has her moments of misbehaving too. But, she sees her life and her body as a gift. I commonly say, “My daughter has a special purpose for her life, and I’m excited to not only watch but also to be a small part of it.”
My daughter’s body has been marked by a disease that has done nothing but empower her spirit. It is so easy to see my daughter – the biological creature. I am learning to choose to see my daughter – the sweet little girl whose body is far from perfect but whose spirit is very near to perfect. Of course there will be days that we need to focus on medical related things, but I refuse to let this obsession act like a disease within me that doesn’t allow me to see my sweet little girl. This amazing child has so much to offer me and the rest of the world, and as the head of her preschool said, “so much to teach us all.”
Fictional Hero
Fictional characters don’t make mistakes that they can’t overcome. Real people do. Fictional characters don’t have secrets. Real people do. Fictional characters don’t have traits that we don’t know about that suddenly come out to the public. Real people do. And unfortunately, this “real people” aspect often causes us to feel defrauded as fans of those real people we might idolize.
By fictional characters, I am referring to anyone from Mickey Mouse to Sherlock Holmes, Batman, Harry Potter and MacGyver. Some trait or storyline likely immediately pops into your head with each character mentioned. It is this fact that allows a fictional character the ability to transcend humanity.
Everyone has role models, people that inspire us, those we look up to – whether they are someone that we know personally or just someone that we find inspirational. Whether they are someone real or even a fictional character.
In fact, you should have at least one fictional character that we aspire to be more like, one that you would define as inspirational to you. Fictional characters are more defined, typically have more exaggerated features, and probably have a finite story. This concluded story creates boundaries that allow us to focus on a few instances or features of that character rather than getting lost in the flaws of real characters. Fictional characters likely don’t have to deal with the long-term consequences of their decisions and can thus be more adventurous and courageous in their short-term story.
Are you looking for some inspiration in the coming year? Maybe you should find a fictional character to model your life more closely after. Next blog, I will tell you what fictional character I’ve chosen to use as inspiration in my life. I’d love to hear who you choose.
2 Suggestions for a New Year
2 Thoughts/Suggestions as you approach 2012.
1. It’s not about change – but improvement. Change is tough. It involves a complete shift, probably changing environment, habits, behaviors, and a lot of other resources and variables that may or may not be within our grasp. What we should all really trying for is improvement. Rather than turn 180 degrees in a different direction, we should focus on taking steps forward, one at a time. When we break our change into small steps towards improvement, it does two things – makes our change more attainable and allows us to constantly be succeeding rather than failing at our complete plan for change.
There are very few out there that are totally horrible people who need total change. However, we start comparing ourselves to each other and start thinking that we need radical and immediate change in order for us to have value or live a life worthy of the air and carbon we consume. When we look at magazines and elsewhere for who we should be and how we should look, total change seems necessary. When we stop comparing ourselves to others and start staring solely in the mirror, improvement is what we need. Improvement is possible daily and doesn’t have to be revolutionary. Improvement involves learning from failures but continuing to make mistakes. Improvement involves 2 steps forward, 1 step backward. Improvement involves sticking with a plan and a vision even when there are setbacks or we make a few decisions counter to that vision.
2. New Month’s Resolutions. By March, probably even February, if you are like me, you have completely fallen away from your New Year’s Resolution. Once we fail, we move on and revert back to the person we were the previous year. I have a tactic I’m going to use in 2012 – New Month’s Resolutions. I am going to break my goals for 2012 into monthly goals and monthly resolutions. This tactic will allow me to have smaller successes, but also to change the focus for a particular month.
I realize that at the New Year we all feel like there is a clean slate, that we are on the same page with everyone else, all striving to revolutionize our lives in one day. I know because I’ve gone to the gym in January before but know what it looked like in April. However, we can create improvement by being realistic and logical about how we go about approaching our lives. When we break our goals and resolutions down into smaller pieces we can have small successes. Success is what motivates us to feel like we can win the bigger battles. More importantly, we have the ability to alter what parts of our goals we are focused on. For example, I hate to run when it’s cold and I hate to run on a treadmill. This year I will focus on physical fitness aspects of my goals in the warmer months.
Write your goals and resolutions down. Think big but break them into smaller bites. Be realistic. Realize that no matter whether we succeed or fail at accomplishing something that we still have worth, purpose and value to ourselves and to those closest to us. Regardless of anything, strive to focus on what’s important this year. Speaking of – I’m off to enjoy the day with my family.
Regardless of Anything, I Learned 2 Things Today…
(this blog has been re-posted from Chris Bingham’s personal blog – originally published 7/29/2009)
Yes, that is me sitting with Barack Obama today (front row on left). Regardless of my political beliefs or anything else, I learned (or at least confirmed) two things today:
1. Our nation needs leaders. Why not me? Now more than ever. The average person is not willing or is afraid to step-up. Why not you?
2. We all have the ability to be extraordinary. Very few pursue extraordinary. In order to be extraordinary people we must live differently than others. We must accept a unique life of peculiarity. Should we not strive to be remarkable in all that we do? One person can accomplish so much in one lifetime when he strives to be remarkable.
We all have the power to change the world, we just need to stand up and lead and realize the power that we do have rather than focusing on the power that we don’t.
Think I’m too idealistic? Join me on our next monthly company service project. Email me and I will gladly give you more details.
Turn up the Quiet
It is way too easy to surround ourselves with noise. And we try to for some reason. I think that most people are afraid to sit in a quiet place and actually be with themselves. Most of us don’t like to be alone nor sit in silence – left with only our thoughts. I’m not exactly sure what we are afraid of or whether we even realize what we are doing.
People commonly go to a coffee shop or to the beach to get away and relax. Interestingly, both places are probably louder than the place that was left. Coffee shop with music, TV, a duo engaged in a loud conversation, machines making coffee and so on. The beach is not all that quiet either – kids running around, waves crashing, seagulls.
Maybe America is falling behind because we are too quick to drown out thoughts with noise. We need to create quiet times for our ourselves to stop and think – to be proactive in our thinking rather than reactive.
I’ve found that the best thoughts that I have come when things are quiet. It is at times uncomfortable. However, as I sit and let my mind scan through the past, present, and future events or to various other ideas that come in and out of my mind, I seem to come away with golden nuggets of wisdom (hold your laughter or applause). This wisdom has had dramatic and profound impact on my life of late, allowing me to realize how powerful silence actually is.
Between running a company and parenting two children, there are not many windows of quiet. Although, I’ve found that riding in my car has become my place to stop and reflect, to plan and to think. Turn the radio off, put the cell phone away and drive. Whatever your flavor, find some time to regularly turn up the quiet.
We Need More Than Just Eisenhower
I have been thinking a lot about what causes people to become truly great, what kind of family do they come from, what key events took place in their lives, what their parents were like, what people crossed their path that positively impacted them, what book did they read, who are their mentors. Recently, I read a book called Father Fiction by Donald Miller. He talks about this concept as it relates to Dwight D. Eisenhower.
From a very young age, Eisenhower’s parents directed the course of his life by instilling the principle that “the world could be fixed of its problems if every child understood the necessity of their existence.“ From this one thought, Eisenhower lived his life with a confidence and a purpose to become a great man because the world needed him; the world’s course would be worse without him. He went on to become a 5-Star General in World War II and later the 34th President of the United States.
The holiday season is huge for my company as we are in the shipping business, primarily for web retailers. Today, I spoke with my staff to make sure that they knew that each of them is not only valued in our company but truly needed for our company to work. Do employees at most companies feel needed?
Look beyond the pressure that you might think could exist from this feeling of being needed to the positive impact of feeling wanted and powerfully connected with your community with the knowledge that your presence makes things better. What would things look like if every child was instilled with value to the point of feeling like the world truly required not only their presence but their action?
In the holiday classic It’s A Wonderful Life, the main character George Bailey is given a view of just how much he was needed by his community and family. What he sees is that his relatively plain life has dramatically impacted the world around him.
Do your children know that you need them in your life? Does your spouse? Co-workers?
There is a dangerous alternative for someone if they are not made to feel needed – that is for that person to feel like a burden to those around them. For adults, I think that it is easier to rationalize being needed: providing for children, caring for elderly parents, making donations to a non-profit, and so on. However, children are much more susceptible to feeling like burdens to their parents and others. Every child should be made to feel needed as this drives purpose and value, as well as a connection to society.
We exist to be in community with each other. We need others in our lives for physical and emotional reasons. Quite often, we overlook the emotional side and fail to leave others with the feeling that we need them. Thank those in your life by letting them know that you need them and that the world needs them. We will all benefit.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Givers and Takers
A year before Riley was born, Allison and I had a miscarriage. For a young married couple trying to have children, it was absolutely devastating. We walked into the doctor’s office that day, expecting to see and hear our first child for the first time. There are very few worse feelings than not hearing something when a heartbeat is supposed to be present and it is not.
Driving away that day, I came to grips with my anger and decided that I would make a symbolic gesture in faith – I did not want to feel like the world owed me anything because of my hardship. I refused to feel like a “taker” even in the moment of tragedy. I decided that day that regardless of what life throws at me, I want to remain a “giver.” I had no idea how this slant would end up rewarding me later.
It is so easy to feel entitled to be a “taker” or to feel like we are owed something. However, I have realized countless times that taking the approach of wanting to be a “giver” is the best way out of the mental rut of dealing with disaster. “Takers” stay in the rut and in turn feel more entitled to continue taking.
My symbolic gesture that day was to give blood, something I had done before but very irregularly. I thought what better way but to anonymously give back to the system that had taken some piece of life from me that day. It was a gesture of giving a piece of my life in confidence that God’s world is still good even when life is taken away. Four years later, after having given blood numerous times since, it was my own daughter that needed blood – 67 times in the span of 3 months. She needed it to sustain the life that I had no fathomable idea I would love so much.
We host blood drives now in order to give others one opportunity to be “givers.” At this point, we have given more blood through our drives than our child has taken. I will forever be a “giver,” though.
We all have a choice of how we are going to approach a world that seems so hard and cold, especially in these difficult economic times. I vote that regardless of what today brings, that we all decide to give. In the end “givers” win.
If I Could Teach You Just One Thing
If you know me at all, you probably realize that the last year of my life has been all but common – the kind of year that will either strengthen or break a person. I decided from the beginning that I would not let it break me.
“We acquire the strength we have overcome.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have, in fact, learned quite a few important lessons. I jokingly tell some that “I’m tired of learning and ready to start using what I’ve learned.” To that, as I reflect, I realize that I have learned and am living the most important thing that has come out of the past year – Nothing matters except the relationships that you have with the people around you, most importantly, your spouse, your parents, and your children.
“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” ~Oprah Winfrey
On June 13, 2010, my only daughter Riley was diagnosed with Hurler’s Syndrome – a devastating genetic disease. This diagnosis would take me on the ride of my life – around corners I never thought possible. And I am sure that the journey is far from over.
Riley’s mother – Allison – and I separated in February 2008 and divorced in December 2009. We had some rough moments, but we worked very well together each as single parents from February 2008 through June 2010. Internally, I was devastated by the events that had transpired in my life to leave me divorced 6 days after my 31st birthday.
Perhaps there is no better depiction for where I was at in my emotional, mental, and spiritual life than to tell you where I was in my physical life when I heard of Riley’s diagnosis. On that June 13, I was on a vacation in Mexico with my 62 year old aunt. That particular day, I was on a boat with 4 men I had never met, 3 of which didn’t speak English. We were deep sea fishing off the coast in the middle of the ocean on a warm morning. I got the call about 11AM. It was Allison, or at least that is what the caller ID said. I could not understand a word she said for the first few minutes because of her level of emotion. She informed me that Riley’s doctors had come back with a diagnosis for some of her issues. The diagnosis was the worst possible scenario and that we might not have our daughter for more than a couple more years. She informed me that she was at the beach with Riley and that she had a few friends coming to be with her. I remember vividly the scene on the ocean and in the boat when I hung up the phone. I have never felt more alone or helpless. I had completely isolated myself from every relationship of significance in my life.
What had happened to my life? What had my selfishness sacrificed over the past couple years? Where was I? How do I get off this boat? How do I get back to Raleigh? How can I save my daughter’s life? Can I some how bargain with God – trade my long life ahead for Riley’s? I’m not talking about needlessly sacrificing myself, but rather telling God to put the pain and suffering on me and my body, let me burden this disease – spare Riley’s innocence.
When we got back to the docks, I immediately went to the computer. Wikipedia confirmed Riley’s death sentence – 8 to 10 years of life expectancy. I stopped reading immediately and with tears went to planning how to get home faster so that I could spend as much of those next years with my little girl. I spent another day and a half in Mexico preparing in my mind for what new life would be in front of me when I exited the plane at RDU. I knew my life would never be the same – not even close. I was determined, in fact, to see to it that I was going to go back and turn my life around – if not for any other reason than to create positive memories with my daughter.
After 3 different surgical procedures, including chest and brain, and extremely destructive chemotherapy, on November 3, 2010, Riley underwent a cord blood transplant (more simply known as a bone marrow transplant because it functions in the same manner as this more common type of transplant). She spent 61 days (during that stay) in the hospital and was released to an apartment across the street from the hospital a few days before Christmas.
She has had 6 surgeries and one additional brief hospital stay since. She still goes to the hospital for treatment about once a week. She is doing great and I am beyond excited to continue to watch her move others around her with her story and her numerous gifts. She has an amazing life ahead of her and I am so happy to be a small piece in what God has in store for her life.
I can promise you that neither Allison nor I could have done this alone. We needed each other for survival. We have watched several other similar stories destroy other families irreparably. We are biologically designed to physically and emotionally need other people. We are built to need relationships. We should all be on a mission to build strong and meaningful relationships with our family and friends. We are not meant to face the challenges of life alone.
For preservation reasons, I have unintentionally blocked out most of my memory of 2008 and 2009; thus, tragically I don’t remember much of Riley’s first couple years of life. However, I have been given a second chance to build lasting memories and impact. I am working harder than ever to use what I’ve learned and apply it to the relationships with those closest to me. There are so few people that will help shape the outcome our lives. It is important for our happiness and even our survival to see to it that we deeply invest in those few people destined to significantly impact each of us.
“If you are not a hero to those closest to you, you are nobody’s hero.” ~Rabbi Schmuley
