Lesson # 9 - I cannot change him.

The top 10 most important things I have learned in the past 12 months...(Part 2).

For the last 12 months I have been in a constant struggle to keep myself from trying to change my son.  Ironically, the best example I have of this being an impossible task is right in front of me every morning as I look at myself in the mirror.  I am living proof that nobody can change who you are inside.  True change only comes from within, anything else is just an illusion.

Lesson #9 - I cannot change him. 

Short of something new and yet to be discovered, every thing in the universe is made out of the same stuff.  You, me, the earth, in fact the entire cosmos is all made out of energy, which at times is visible and at others not.  The essence of everything you know, including your thoughts, is made out of energy.  In our small blue marble of a planet we call Earth, the process of evolution has created an amazing collage of things, some inanimate, others very much alive, which surround our every breath we take.  For a stone to attain it's shape and composition, it took millions, sometimes billions of years.  The same can be said for all living creatures in our world.  A red rose is not just a red rose.  Within it are millions of cells that symbiotically have found a way to survive and thrive so that it may in the large scale of things eventually become a rose.  This stands true for everything that is alive on Earth.  If you wanted to turn a rose into a daisy, nothing short of a miracle would be needed on your part to perform such a task.  In fact, even if it could be done, you would first have to destroy the real essence of the rose by converting it into energy, and then afterwards transform that energy back into a daisy.  This my dear readers is not much different from what it would take to change your child into a different person.  Wanting my son to be different by my standards means having to destroy his real essence in order to do so.  There is the lesson, not only am I not capable of changing my son, I truthfully do not want to change him.

True change comes from within.  Nobody can make me a better father.  In order for me to become a better father I must want to do so from within myself.  Nobody can change my son.  In order for him to become a good man, he must learn the lessons that make any man a good man and then be willing to adapt from within.  My job is not to change him, instead it is to guide him, set an example, and then be there for him when he needs me.  Just as the rose will need water and nutrients, so will he need caring and love to see him through all the tests that life will throw at him on his journey to become a man.  It is not what you tell them as a parent that really matters, it is what you show them.  Telling someone that you are there for them, but then when they need you being miles away to help is not the same as being there in the flesh.  Us humans are funny that way, we thrive on real contact with others, and we easily whither when left all alone and what might seem without hope.  The love and caring that you give your children cannot be replaced with anything else, and without it they will become totally different individuals.

I have learned during the past 12 months that rather than trying to change my child, I need to accept him for who he is, just the way he is, and feed with love and compassion the good qualities inside him.  There are so many reasons to be upset with a challenging teenager, but there are also just as many to be proud of him.  To focus on the negative things would simply force me to be upset, frustrated, and angry all the time.  What would be the usefulness to having that attitude?  I am not advocating to ignore negative behavior, there is a time and place for rewards and this would definitely not be it.  However, I have learned to truly appreciate the beauty that is mostly hidden from plain view in the many little things that make my child unique.  Even when he is in the midst of a very unfortunate behavior, I can still see through him when I look into his eyes.  He is in there, waiting to thrive, to succeed, to be a great man!  Nobody wants to do it all wrong.  When he is doing it all wrong, there is a reason that might not be justifiable, but still the reason stands.  It is my job to understand this reason, to see what it takes to sand down the roughness of his words, to cool down the heat in his burning heart.  I cannot imagine anyone else willing to take on this task, so it might as well be me.  Not because I have no other choice, but because I want to see him through it all.  So again we come full circle, it's all about love.

Dad