For my birthday, I chose to make a list of 38 things I know with my heart. I’ve divided them into four categories: Love, Work, Play, and Learn.
Love.
1. Love is the bottom line motivation for everything I do.
2. My family is the center of my heart.
3. Love isn’t zero sum. My heart expands every day.
4. Being a parent is hard.
5. Being a parent is joy.
6. The gift of being home with my sons has been worth every sacrifice we made.
7. No family bond is easy – you have to put in the work to maintain your connection.
8. Always, always, always treat your partner with love and respect.
9. A good hug can always help.
10. Love doesn’t always mean yes. (This is especially true with kids.)
Work.
1. Do what you love every day.
2. You can’t know what work you’ll be doing tomorrow – but you can get ready today.
3. Words and music together can change people.
4. Doing the right work magnifies you and your work.
5. Find ways to be around the best people & then learn from them.
6. Starting is the best way to finish.
7. There’s always a farther goal.
8. Dreaming big dreams isn’t the hard part. Making them real is.
9. Work at something you love is still work.
10. That’s a whole lot better than any alternative.
Play.
1. Losing sleep to finish a great book is always worth it.
2. Running is good for me and I enjoy it.
3. But it was really hard at first. (That’s the secret of everything.)
4. Reading aloud to people is always worth the effort.
5. Is there a better feeling than a sailboat on a sunny day when it catches the wind?
6. Family game night is a really good thing.
7. There’s not much that brings me more joy than baking for people I love.
8. Being creative sometimes needs play and time away.
9. We should all make music every day for fun.
10. Social media’s pluses (connection, relationships, birthdays) are an exact balance for the minuses (time suck, negativity, politics).
Learn.
1. The more I know, the less I’m sure of.
2. The more I learn, the more I wonder.
3. Approach every experience with a curious mind.
4. We need to do a better job of teaching and learning.
5. Everything I learn informs everything I do: it’s all connected.
6. Who I am today is not who I was five years ago, or who I thought I’d be.
7. That will go for the future, too, though I can’t imagine how I’ll change.
8. Collecting connections is the point of the journey.