Starting a blog has been on my to-do list for as long as I can remember - certainly more than 3 or 4 years. I think three main factors have provided the nudge to add this to my list and to finally get to this point.
First is related to my Dad. I have huge admiration for my dad in that he was an insatiable learner, a life-long learner if ever there was one. As I grew up I watched him seek out knowledge non-stop. He must have had 2 dozen magazine subscriptions, read the Wall Street Journal every day, read book after book. Yes he watched a ton of TV, but never junk. He watched the History channel and news mainly with some sports here and there. But the key was that he was constantly soaking up new information. TV or reading were never for entertainment - it was always to gain knowledge. But the incredible tragedy is that he never passed that collected wisdom along. I wanted to learn from him and I know he was always happy to share his knowledge but there was never the proper setting or circumstances to make that happen. It seems such a loss that all of that collected wisdom in the end died along with him in 2007. So the first nudge comes from my vow to not to make that mistake myself.
The second nudge is not completely unrelated. Like every parent, one of my most urgent goals in life is to help my kids grow up to succeed, prosper, be happy, live a good life (whatever that means) and so I am always anxious to share the lessons I’ve learned with them. But as you all know this simply doesn’t seem to work. The chances of me getting in the “flow” concerning a given subject at the same time that the kids are interested in listening is apparently zero. Maybe less. My dad may have experienced that. So my hope is that this logic will apply: I write stuff when it’s on my mind and the kids will pick it up when the time is right for them. So the theory goes.
And there’s no question that a third nudge is also at play - some of the fondest memories of my life were the days in college when my dear friend Peter Mihm and I spent hours and hours talking about life. Why do people do the things they do? How does this work? What happens if you do this? What is success? And of course, what are the most important things in life? So the third nudge is my hope this blog will also assemble a group of others that love to dig into tough topics the way I do.
With that thought I hope you’ll not just visit but will eagerly participate in this venture.
Cheers!
David Barnes
