Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.  Not to be confused with sympathy the feelings of sorrow for someones misfortune.  Empathy has been argued to be determined at birth.  Some people possess a great ability to have large amounts of empathy and some people don’t possess it at all.  It is a vital part of building and maintaining relationships.  Is it really something that you either have or don’t have though.  There is proof it can be something learned though.  It is simply a choice just like that many choices we are faced with daily in life.  If you choose to be empathetic and put yourself in situations more often you will learn the behavior and in turn develop empathy.

So why all the talk about empathy you ask…well for me empathy is something I have been lacking for many years now.  When I was much younger I had some sense of and thought about how others felt.  As I got older I definitely made the choice to show it less and less.  I tricked myself into thinking my sympathy for someone meant I cared about what they were going through when in reality it was just me acknowledging they were going through something.  My focus was always on how whatever event happened would affect me.  Wrong thought process for me as it led to me making choices that hurt other people.

As my life has changed I focused more on being right and having someone see things my way.  I cared less about how the person felt and listened less.  Needless to say instead of learning from my mistakes I was doomed to repeat them without even realizing it.  My lack of empathy lead to a need to prove I was right.  Maybe not the case for everyone showing a lack of empathy but specifically for me it caused a very skewed lens to life.  So just like many other choices my choice was clear…continue to live life this way or make the change.

So my lack of knowledge about empathy lead to reading articles, talking with my therapist about it, talking with people close to me and really trying to figure out where/why the change happened for me.  This is my conclusion…it doesn’t matter when or why it happened my lack of empathy is something I want to change.  I stopped being empathetic and made choices that caused a lot of issues in life that I don’t want to repeat them.  I hurt people that didn’t deserve getting hurt, changed lives in totally different directions and I don’t want to do that anymore.  The choice for me is deciding to learn about empathy and start using it in my life actively.  Its a choice you have to make much like eating right, working out, be polite, or any other choice you face throughout your day.  It is something that I want to be better at and just like anything else you want to be better at you have to put in the work.  So today’s share is a little more heavy on the content but it is something I wanted to share.  I am going to work much harder to be empathetic and make choices with others in mind.  I hope you have a great day and life is well for everyone and anyone that reads this.

Below is a link that I read that while short has some awesome information I came across when reading about empathy.  Enjoy

http://www.instituteforwellness.com/2015/08/28/three-steps-to-greater-empathy/

First Day of School

Meet The Teacher

First Game of Baseball Season

Oh my what a week….

The events came fast and furious this week.  Knox transitioned to a new class at daycare,  meet the teach for the older kids, the first day of school, baseball practice and the first game of the season!  Not to be outdone though next weeks schedule has soccer for Millie on Monday, baseball for Oliver on Tuesday, soccer for Oliver on Wednesday then games on Saturday!  I am sure most families can relate as typically this time of year is when the routines get into full swing with all the family activities.  It is crazy how fast they grow and so awesome when they start participating in activities.  I am amazed by each of them how much they change and learn.  For me spending time with them helps me refocus on whats important for me.  I know that I have to keep making the changes in my own self so that I can continue to be around to see what amazing people they become.

The week went really well and the kids did amazing.  Millie started her 3rd year of Gate Academy in the 5th grade.  It is the gifted and talented pilot school in Allen and she has done great.  The decision about her going was tough to make but she has really excelled and loves her school.  Oliver started Kindergarten this year and most of the summer said he didn’t want to go.  The closer we got he came around and was really excited.  He was nervous on day 1 and other than one little moment where he bumped his chin on his desk right as class was starting he did great.  Knox is changing so much and is a little chatter box.  He is really into repeating any question you ask him then answering it.  It is really cute because you can say something like “What does a cow say?” and you get “What does a cow say daddy?…mooooo!”  It is so awesome!  He also has the greatest belly laugh ever.  When he really gets going it can brighten anyone’s day.

We also started sports this week with Oliver starting our 3rd season with the Rowdy Rangers (baseball) and 3rd season with The Sharks(soccer).  He is such an awesome little athlete.  I coach on both of his teams and love getting the time with him each week.  I mean what dad doesn’t like sharing sports with his son.  Millie is starting soccer again after playing as a little kid.  Her first practice is tomorrow.  She said she was nervous and worried about failing so we had the long talk about failure is the only way to learn and pushing through it will make her better in the end.  I am excited to just be a parent for her soccer season.  I have coached her in soccer when she was younger and coached Oliver so it will be cool to just be the parent on the sideline for this one.

The greatest part of all the running around and routine is just seeing them happy, sad, nervous, excited or whatever emotion comes into play.  Life gets busy and its easy to just push through it without really noticing the changes your kids are going through.  You just go sometimes as a parent and then you get caught thinking wow how did we get through that.  Sometimes though if you stop and really watch them, enjoy the moment with them then you realize life is nothing but moments and choices no matter how old we are.  For me its about being the best possible person I can be each day moving forward.  My kids are amazing reminders that I have to be the best I can be.  They are always watching no matter how busy we are.  If I am not the best version of myself they see it, learn the behavior and maybe they wont have the confidence they need in life to be the best they can be.

Hope everyone has had an amazing week and whatever moments you face this week you are the best you that you can be!  Until next time…

          This was me back in June of 2017…if I am being honest it was the worst version of me that I can remember.  I wasn’t honest, wasn’t empathetic and was on the verge of crashing my entire life.  I looked back at this picture after taking a picture recently and the noticeable difference is the weight but thinking back on who I was for me is the biggest difference.  I don’t want to be that person ever again.  He wasn’t a good person and hadn’t been for a while.  Parts of him good yes, but the important parts were lacking.  Everyone’s rock bottom looks different I suppose and the details of it don’t really matter, its just about deciding to get back up and climb through the shit you created to get back to the version of you that you really want to be.  For me it is going to be a long climb and probably will suck for a while.  The alternate choice though is much worse.

Like I said I started this blog a while back and I lost site of why I started it.  I wanted to share about my life and hopefully learn more about myself in doing so.  Well I didn’t do that and instead used this as a platform for other reasons.  I recently had a great conversation with a very important person for me and realized that I just needed to refocus this little blog and use it for what I wanted to in the first place.  Its about me and sharing my life so that I can learn from failures, smile at successes and maybe occasionally say something funny.  I mean I think I am funny sometimes!  I haven’t even started to jump into the #dadjokes.  That being said I thought the first share for the new blog should be about this picture and the recent one.  So here is the recent picture I took at work after completing the Whole 30 diet.

The Whole 30 diet is a diet that last 30 days.  The concept is to eliminate dairy, grains, legumes and sugar to reset your body.  It is so you can identify things that might have had a negative impact on your body and to reset your system.  We had discussed it during training at my new job and the competitive side of me said “lets do it.”  I wanted to make a change and thought maybe this is the change I needed to make.  So it was agreed upon and we picked our start date…one person was about to leave for vacation for a week so we waiting until they returned to start.

I couldn’t believe it when I saw this picture.  I knew that I had lost some weight and my perception of food had changed but was that me?  I know it is ironic that I am holding a cookie cake in a picture where I have lost a bunch of weight but we were celebrating the end of the crazy diet, and a really good work week as a team.

I looked back at the picture from right around a year ago and I was shocked.  The even bigger thing for me…I can’t remember the last time I followed all the way through with something I said I would do for me.  The diet was hard because I have always eaten really badly.  People tried to tell me but I had never really listened.  I have always been a “I know the right way” kind of guy and it has cost me in the past.  This time I just followed the guidelines the diet said to and didn’t try to pretend like I knew a better way to do this.  It was really eye opening and still a week later all I want to do is keep pushing to be the healthiest I can be.  Let me say this, I am not a pro at it now either but my views of what I eat have completely changed.  I haven’t felt this good physically in a long time and that cookie cake in the picture did not taste anything like I remembered.

Its a small victory but it was needed.  I am excited about eating right now and its pretty funny because if you knew me in the past you might be surprised by some of the things I consider to taste good these days.  Hit me up about some Steve’s Dried Mango hahaha….

Hope everyone is doing well in life and finding the happiness you deserve!!  Until next time.