Pride

The big one ran an Olympic distance triathlon last weekend. That's 1/2 mile swim, 24 mile bike, and a 10K run. Needless to say I was, and am, a very proud father.

I think what I was most proud of was that he hurt a little during the race. I'm always proud of him no matter what he does and I love it when he wins something. What I've been waiting to see is that look in his eyes that says he has earned something.


There's a big difference between winning and earning although the two can occur at the same time. So far in my son's young life I have only seen the winning. That's not to say he has won everything. I've seen his failures too but win or lose it was always something external to him it seemed. It wasn't something that he internalized or became epic to him. It was just something he did. The earning is something that I couldn't help him with. I could give him advice (although he rarely listened) on how to succeed or how to do his best but I couldn't help him get to that place where he worked for something meaningful to his inner soul and overcame the external obstacles and his own internal doubts to achieve a goal. No one can help him do that, he had to do it himself and it finally happened I think.






He is a wonderful kid and I want him to find himself and his inner strength. I hope this was the first step towards that.




Thanks for listening