2/40 - Map(s) Of The World

While I wasn't aware of it, some of the most important decisions that affected my life were already made by the time I was in my second year. These decisions were out of my control but ultimately shaped so much of who I grew up to be. Those decisions were made by my parents and how they chose to live their life. Whether intentional or not, their choices gave me my first map of the world at an incredibly early age. The known world around me became my frame of reference for everything I later decided for myself.

I was very fortunate to have my parents make the choices they made.

• My parents loved each other (and still do)
• Family was incredibly important to them (and it still is)
• My Dad worked at the same company from the day I was born until the day he retired.
• My Mom stayed home with me and eventually my three siblings.
• They made their faith a focal point of their lives, and thereby the life of our family.

These five decisions had been made and I was the first child in the family to grow up with their impact surrounding me. I didn't know it at the time, but in hindsight, I can see it in the photo albums and hear it in the stories that are told about those days on Burdette St. in Omaha, NE.

The impact that those early decisions make is something that countless studies have shown affects the trajectory of a child and something that I know terrifies many a new parent. Seeing how my sister in Ireland is dealing with her two kids under the age of 3 right now or watching my soon-to-be 2.5-year-old niece navigate Christmas with the family, it is incredible how aware they are and how formative these years will be on their future.

It was only in hindsight that I could see and understand the way those decisions came into play in how I understood the world when I was no longer dependent on my parent's approval. It took a few years of living on my own to see that I'd been taking a path that was very predictable and safely inside of the confines of the map I'd been given. But it wasn't my map yet, it was a map that had served me well, but it didn't go places I knew I wanted to explore and understand.

It was a challenging period when I started to explore outside the realms of the prior map I'd had and looked to learn and understand things that were outside of the known territories of the map I'd been raised with. Not because I was against what I knew, but because I knew there was so much more that I didn't know and that I wanted to explore and decide how it might affect my understanding of a new world that awaited.

I am so grateful that my parents raised me with a defined map that had boundaries, rules, and non-negotiables. It gave me the confidence to know where to stretch towards and a lot of space to run in between. But in the same way that constraints are one of the most sure-fire ingredients for creativity, constraints also inspire exploration and testing of their strength, or at least of their continued relevance.

It is like children on a playground in the middle of a field. If you designed a wonderful playground, led a group of kids to it, and gave no instructions, and set no defined boundaries, most of the kids would just stay on the playground and that would be all. But, if you put up a small fence to surround the playground, the kids would not only play on the playground, but up to, and even on, the fence. The fence isn't there to restrict play, but to give confidence on what all is permissible.

And for children growing up, that kind of freedom with safety is wonderful.

So now, looking back some 38 plus years two when I was in my second year of life, I am so grateful to have had my parents be that consistent and confidence-inspiring original map of the world. They equipped me with the tools to test and learn, to taste and see what is good on my own. They raised me up in a way that when I got old I didn't depart (too far) from it. They certainly were times when I got calls from Mom or long handwritten letters from Dad that questioned the way I was choosing to explore the world and bewilderment at why I needed to go on the adventure I was on. But, knowing that they loved me unconditionally and were always going to was a gift that I was given at a very early age that I can attribute so much of the joy and success I have now in life to, even if it took me taking a longer way to get there than what was on their original map of the world.

I am a very lucky man to have the parents that I do.