Doing Hard Things

April 23, 2016

Gary J. Borgstede Letters To My Children 1 Comment

To my beloved children:

I’m not sure if you realize this or not, but my life and your mom’s life has not always been easy. While we have done our best to give each of you a quality and stable family life, the effort it has taken for us to do it has been well short of easy. In fact, it’s been hard and at times, it’s been real hard. But nonetheless, because our family is worth it, your mom and I have not been afraid to do the hard things in life in order to have the good things in life for our family.

For example, it was hard for your mom and I to get an education, buy cars, build houses, raise children, save for retirement, and consistently invest our ourselves today in order to build a better tomorrow. These things I’ve listed are by no means the complete list of all the hard things that your mom and I had to do during our life together, nor is it the end of the hard things that we will need to do during the rest of our life together. The list is not the point. The point is that even though we have had to do some hard things, and still do, doing hard things makes us stronger people and will make you stronger people as well. Plus, doing the hard things in life leads to the good things in life because any good thing worth having – good relationships, good education, good career, good marriage, good family, good health, good finances, good retirement, and a good tomorrow – is worth the hard things we must do to have them.

I wish life was different and I wish I could tell you that life will never be hard, but I’d be lying if I did. So as your father, I want to encourage each of you to make a life-long commitment to doing the hard things in life because the truth is that good things in life most often come from doing hard things in life. An old Chinese proverb says, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Taking a journey of a thousand miles is a hard thing, but once you take the first step in doing any hard thing, each subsequent step becomes much easier. So don’t be afraid to take the first step in doing the hard things in life because the journey to a good life awaits each hard step you must take along the way.

Your imperfect loving,

Dad

Doing Hard Things Copyright 2016, Gary J. Borgstede.  You have permission to reprint the letter, Doing Hard Things, in its entirety only, and forward to your colleagues and friends, provided the copyright notice remains part of the reprint and transmission.  All other rights reserved.

Personal Declaration Of Empowerment

April 9, 2016

Gary J. Borgstede Faith And Family Leave a comment

To my beloved children:

From the time you began walking to the time of your 18th birthday, your mom and I have done our best to prepare you for being a responsible empowered adult. However, in order to actually be a responsible empowered adult upon reaching the age of 18, each of you must personally embrace what it truly means to be a responsible empowered adult and then live your life in such a manner. To help you do this, I have written the following personal declaration of empowerment that can and will inspire you to live your life each day as a responsible empowered adult if you make this personal declaration of empowerment your own and live it each day. I know you’ve got this and you can do it! And because I desire to live my life as a responsible empowered adult as well, I declare the same.

Your imperfect loving,

Dad

Personal Declaration of Empowerment

As a responsible empowered adult, aged 18 or older, I declare this day to embrace personal responsibility and empowerment and I choose this day to reject any entitlement thinking that demands from others the provision of personal benefits that have not been duly earned through my own hard work, study, and achievement. As a human being made in the image of my Creator, I am only entitled to the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that all people created equal have been given by their Creator.  Therefore, as a responsible empowered adult, my entitled right to pursue happiness does not give me the right to expect others to provide for my happiness without my personal responsibility to do whatever it takes to secure my happiness through my own hard work, study, and achievement.  This means that I must work hard for anything and everything that may or may not provide personal happiness in my life regardless of my race, creed, gender, family, occupation, or station in life. I accept the definition of hard work as the highest personal contribution that I can give in making my environment and the environments around me better as a result of my personal efforts.

Because I am a responsible empowered adult, I will not expect anyone else to do for me what I can and should do for myself. However, I realize that all people need help at times in life; therefore, when I personally need help from others, I will humbly ask for such help and I will graciously receive that help in my time of personal need. And when people give me help or anything else through their personal generosity, I will gratefully receive their help and their generosity as a great blessing in my life.

Furthermore, I recognize that every day I am alive is a precious gift from my Creator. With the gift of each new day, I choose to take full responsibility for my daily decisions as well as the resulting consequences of those decisions knowing that every decision determines a path and every path leads to a destination. Because each destination in my life is determined greatly by my personal life choices rather than my personal life circumstances, I will do everything in my power to respond to my life circumstances in a way that will ultimately determine the best possible outcomes in my life regardless of the circumstances.

And lastly, I recognize that my life can only be lived by me and I promise myself that I will put forth the diligent effort to intentionally live my life in a manner that honors my Creator for giving me life and blesses others for being in my life.  All of this personal declaration of empowerment is what it means to be a responsible empowered adult.

 

Personal Declaration of Empowerment Copyright 2016, Gary J. Borgstede.  You have permission to reprint the letter, Personal Declaration of Empowerment, in its entirety only, and forward to your colleagues and friends, provided the copyright notice remains part of the reprint and transmission.  All other rights reserved.

Learning In Life

April 2, 2016

Gary J. Borgstede Letters To My Children 2 Comments

To my beloved children:

As you were growing up and even as you are still learning in life, I am doing my best to be a good father and provider for you and to teach you the life skills necessary for being people of true character and people prepared for real life. At this stage in your lives, I continue to pray for each of you, and when invited, it is my greatest joy to provide fatherly counsel to you for important life matters. However, I also realize that giving and receiving fatherly counsel is not always easy; therefore, to help you benefit from my many years of life experience and hard learned life lessons, I personally write these letters to you as a simple way to benefit you throughout your whole life. And one of my deepest prayers for each of you is that you fully realize each day of your lives that you are each completely and totally responsible for your life and your decisions. In the simplest of terms, this is what it means to be an adult. Without question, to live your life as a fully responsible and healthy adult, you must unequivocally embrace your life decisions as well as the resulting life consequences – the good and the bad – always.

I share this with you because as much as possible, I don’t want you to experience life the painful way. And because I know that we mostly learn in life through two primary means…tribulation and revelation…mistakes and mentors, I firmly implore each of you to please seek truthful revelation to avoid painful tribulation and please choose wise trustworthy mentors to avoid foolish costly mistakes. And trust me when I say…mentors are so much better than mistakes and revelation is so much better than tribulation.

When you live life long enough, I am certain that you will each learn for yourselves that every choice requires a decision and every decision determines a path and every path leads to a destination. Therefore, learn this principle early. Your life choices are yours alone to make and your destination is yours alone to embrace. Regardless of your life choices, I want you to know that I love each of you individually, with my whole heart, always and forever, no matter what. With that said, I trust that you will each take my fatherly counsel to your heart and live your life as if wise fatherly counsel truly matters.

Your imperfect loving,

Dad

Learning In Life Copyright 2016, Gary J. Borgstede.  You have permission to reprint the letter, Learning In Life, in its entirety only, and forward to your colleagues and friends, provided the copyright notice remains part of the reprint and transmission.  All other rights reserved.