According to Gavin signs of wisdom include my age, my head of thinning hair, the wrinkles on my face, and the white in my beard. I explain that those are really signs that I’m his dad and that’s what he’s doing to me.

I had a pretty good sized list of tasks for the weekend that I started knocking out early last night and continued through today. At first everything was going better than planned and I was moving along much more quickly than expected… until a couple of projects went sideways pretty quickly. I took a deep breath and tried a few different options to no avail. At that point I hung it up, came in the house, and took another deep breath.

In the past I would’ve kept trying to accomplish the goal and my emotions (especially frustration) would’ve continued to build until I finally broke something and made the project bigger than it needed to be. Today I paused, took a couple of breaths, and walked away for a little while. After attaining some distance I was able to see a couple of potential solutions and tried them out. As luck would have it, they worked pretty well!

For clarity, I still got frustrated. I drew a little blood even (stupid mistake on my part that left me with a little bleeding from the scalp – nothing serious, more humorous after the fact). But I got the projects done, and I got them done without breaking anything (other than my skin). Today I’m thankful for signs of growing wisdom – taking a deep breath, walking away, and taking it on after I’ve had a chance to stay calm.

Thanks!!!