I recently tweeted (@MapNMusicMan) that I did not become a bad-ass all on my own. This series I'm beginning now profiles the powerful and/or subtly helpful influences of the men in my life who taught me how to be a man.
...One of the keys to a person being successful at her job of single-mothering is to understand her weaknesses and find ways to overcome them. My mother chose to overcome what she, deep down, probably knew was a flaw on her part - her insistence that I my father try to act like a dad – by annoyingly insisting that I get out of the house and do stuff… With some of these things, I think that it was harder to force me than others. She had a tough time getting me to go to school, a somewhat difficult time to get me to go to Boy Scout meetings (I don’t recall being difficult about camping trip departures, at least from a motivational standpoint), a little difficulty with church youth group. On the other hand, I think that I made it pretty easy for her to motivate me to go to soccer-baseball-basketball practice, but, in any case, I'm glad that she did. All of the men whom I met set some sort of good example for me or gave me some good idea of how I could find the path to success.
So, further ado to be left in the dust, here we go, starting off with the man through whose influence I am writing this blog in the first place.
Note: In order to protect privacy, I'm not going to use names.
My college communications instructor
Sometimes in life, I think that we run across people who, for some reason or other, we just want to sit and listen to them talk to us. I've been blessed to meet several such people. This gentleman's kindness has been so powerful for me. I say kindness because he gives me lots of advice; as I grow older, I believe more and more that advice freely given by others is a precious gift. When people take the time to give you advice, they often are people who deeply, truly care about you. How many people sit by and watch us fail, enjoying our pain?
A couple of the gems of sage-ness that he's shared (not direct quotes):
Make your job what you would do anyway; then, your work is just you being you, and it's not a job
What's your band going to offer that no one else has really done? Lyle Lovett uses Western swing to tell stories that have nothing to do with cowboy life. Living Colour is a band from Harlem that plays metal.
Sometimes, the best advice comes from a person not telling you what to do, but helping you to avoid making mistakes:
On my idea to make textbook audio books:
I think that you'll find that creative path fraught with difficulties for which you're not yet ready. Your time would be better spent focusing on something more basic.(Paraphrased)
I have stopped by his office numerous times just to talk, or to vent, or to throw out some random creative idea that I have. He always listens to me, encourages me. Every time that I apply for a job, I call him up and read him my cover letter, and he always finds something to make my cover letter slightly better and more professional-sounding.
He never tells me what I want to hear unless he thinks that I will have a chance to succeed. Sometimes, he's talking to me, and I just sit there, trying to be cool and hold back a smile, but I just love listening to him.
If he reads this, I hope that he knows that I don't know how stable I'd be, or if I'd have even been able to choose the few mildly-committal directions that I've chosen.
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