I’m going to let you in on a little secret of mine. I still read magazines and newspapers. That’s right, the ones made out of paper that come to my physical mailbox.
I dogear pages to let me know where I’ve left off. I still rip out pages and mail articles of interest to friends from time to time.
The DBL crew rarin’ and ready to take on the high seas
One of my favorite magazines is Men’s Journal. I tend to start with the celebrity interview that’s on the last page of the issue. There’s always a question about the “best advice you’ve ever received” and the responses cover a lot of ground.
For example, there’s similar advice from Stan Lee, “the greatest are the humblest” and Mike Tyson, “we should try our best to be humble in life.”
John Mellencamp said his grandpa told him “If you’re going to hit a cocksucker, kill ‘em.” Whoa!
Richard Linklater offered, “I’m going to do the opposite of what everyone tells me. We define ourselves by what we don’t do as much as what we do.”
Nick Nolte’s was simple, “just surrender”.
Tony Hawk’s “don’t listen to the haters” nails it. Easier said than done, but most of these fall into that classification.
Maybe the one that hit home with me the most was Carl Hiaasen’s “Do something you love and do it the best you can, no matter what.”
Who knew following dad’s plan would lead to success?
Giving advice can be tricky, but one thing I always say to my boys is to “just give your best effort and I’ll take my chances on the result.” I believe it’s all I can ask and that it will serve them well in life.
I’m not sure our summer lineup of Dads’ Bucket List activities fit with the notion of giving our best effort. You see, we doubled up on things we did last year like the parade and the pear tree harvest and even our latest outing of tubing down the Chattahoochee River in Helen, GA.
The outing went great except for the fact that George Markley heard there would be talent scouts out there so he thought it best to take his shirt off for our river excursion. “Awkward”, as my son Blake would say.
We decided to increase the degree of difficulty of staying in your tube by mixing in some pirate play and even a little football tossing. In the end, the float down the river yielded no injuries, no tears and thankfully no drama.
We wrapped it up with a picnic spread and a trip to the ice cream parlor before heading back home. On the ride back, I got to thinking about my advice on giving your best effort and whether or not I was following it.
Doing the same activities as last year probably doesn’t meet the criteria so I’ll endeavor to do better on that front.
“Please take my advice and wipe off your face”
And as it relates to putting on our second “Checklist Challenge” this October, you can bet that those who attend will find many new obstacles and challenges. You can also expect to receive my humblest, best effort to put on an event experience dads and kids will enjoy and remember.
I hope that as I walk around to observe all the activities and interactions that I’ll hear lots of good, fatherly advice.
Perhaps I’ll even hear one dad say, “Just give your best effort and I’ll take my chances on the result.”
Go. See. Be. Do.
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Dads' Bucket List 