We welcome our special guest blogger, Dan Blanchard, award-winning author, speaker, and educator who has appeared on over 100 television and radio shows. Dan offers a father’s perspective to last week’s Father’s Day post, a daughter’s tribute: My Dad. My Hero. My North Star.  Both posts illustrate the best of good parenting with personal examples of simple things remembered.

***

The Simple Things in Life are the Best Things in Life!

Enjoying simple things — Several summers ago my daughter and I were swimming in our pool. This day had been like most others, so I had no way of knowing that this one would go down in our family history as a memory we still talk about from time to time.

The sun was setting and the night was quickly approaching. From the shallow end of our pool, my daughter noticed it first. Right about eye level, building its life connections to the bottom of the freshly painted blue fence that surrounded our pool, was a spider spinning her web. It surprised me that my daughter wasn’t grossed out.

“We lost track of time simply having fun.”

Instead, she delightfully watched as the spider busied herself in the cycle of life. As we both gazed at this wonder of nature, a very simple thought hit me.

“I had lost track of time. I didn’t know how long we had been standing together staring at that spider building her web. We were simply having fun and hadn’t really done anything special.”

Parent-child timeWe hadn’t saved the world or bought something expensive. No travel on some big airplane to some exotic land. However, I believe we were both just as fulfilled as if we had done these things.

What we had done was to spend time together and appreciate the simple things in life. We laughed and talked about the circle of life, and what it means to die and what it means to really live. We talked about how precious our limited amount of time is on this planet and how we should pause to enjoy the simple things in life like the flight of a bird. And we talked about the importance of leading rather than following.

Lessons learned: 

  • the circle of life and death, and what it means to really live
  • our limited time on this beautiful planet is precious
  • pause to enjoy the simple things
  • the importance of leading the way to a better life
  • where, when, and how much it costs matters less than simply being together

Now let’s all get out and learn how to create memories with our children. Let’s teach them to lead, and lay the way to a better life in this great big world of ours! Finally, remember that the simple things are the best things in life, even our kids think so.

***

Our thanks to Dan Blanchard for adding a father’s perspective to a daughter’s tribute in last week’s post: My Dad. My Hero. My North Star.

About Dan Blanchard

The Storm: How Young Men Become Good Men by Dan BlanchardDan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, and educator who has appeared on over 100 television and radio shows. Check out Dan’s new book, The Storm:

The Storm: How Young Men Become Good Men 

An angry, struggling teen is changed when his estranged and mysterious Granddaddy appears and reveals his life as a former WWII fighter-pilot, his past, his famous friends, and how he escaped a meaningless life.

More about Dan on his website and blog at: http://www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

###