Find a Need and Fill It

I was at my first Information Technology conference many years ago when I heard Dr. Jackie Freiberg speak about leadership.

One of her slides made the argument that we choose to be leaders rather than wait to be assigned the role.

I took a picture of it with my phone.

Apparently, I sensed there would come a day when our phones would contain thousands of pictures we would rarely look at again…but this one stayed with me.

The idea that we are designed to choose felt powerful. Leadership was not limited to the role we occupied within the four walls of a work cubicle—although mine only had three, but who was counting?

It extended into all the roles of our lives: husband, wife, mother, father, brother, sister, teacher, friend, and individual contributor.

If we are designed to choose, aren’t we also defined, at least in part, by those choices?

In the workplace, it is easy to wait to be acted upon. We wait for someone to tell us what to do. We wait for the expectations to become clearer, the strategy to be finalized, the organization to mature, or the leaders above us to become perfectly aligned.

And what happens when none of that occurs?

Do we blame the boss? Point to the lack of organizational maturity? Sit back and mire ourselves in non-helpful rhetoric?

Sometimes I have.

But somewhere early in my career, someone gave me a simple piece of advice to follow in my career:

“Find a need and fill it.”

I adopted it immediately and made it part of my work success algorithm.  I didn't even completely know what it meant exactly, but somewhere deep inside I instantly knew it would be important.  Boy, that has been an understatement!  It has dramatically affected the success I have realized over the years.

But what does it really mean to find and fill a need?

I have been thinking about that question again because of a recent conversation with a colleague. This person felt they had more capacity in their current role. They knew they could contribute more, but they didn’t know where to begin.

I found myself returning to that old advice.

“Find a business problem someone has,” I said, “and become part of the solution.”

It sounded simple enough.

But as I thought about it afterward, I realized that the word part may be the most important word in that sentence.

Not every problem belongs to us. We do not have the expertise, authority, time, or permission to solve every need we notice. And rushing in with an answer before understanding the problem can create more disruption than value.

Good intentions are not always the same thing as good judgment.

So perhaps finding a need does not mean appointing ourselves as the person in charge of fixing it. It begins by paying attention to what matters to someone else.

• What is keeping them up at night?
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• What are they trying to accomplish?
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• Where are they stuck?
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• What problem continues to return without being resolved?

Could we make their priority part of our own priority—not forever and not at the expense of everything else, but long enough to help something important move forward?

Sometimes we fill the need by solving the problem.

But perhaps that is only one way.

Some problems need someone to ask a better question. Others need a connection between people who have been working separately. Some need a new idea, a useful framework, a different perspective, or simply a thought partner willing to stay in the conversation long enough for greater clarity to emerge.

Maybe value creation is not always producing the answer.

Sometimes it is lifting the mind toward new possibilities.

That has probably been one of the most consistent parts of my own work. I have tried to collaborate, consult, connect people, and help others see their challenges in new ways. At times, I have been able to create a solution. At other times, the most valuable thing I could offer was a question or an idea that helped someone else discover the solution.

Maybe that is still filling the need.

The more I have practiced this mantra, the more I have also learned that trust changes everything.

When trust already exists, people are more willing to share what the real problem is. They do not have to defend every unfinished idea or pretend to have all the answers. They allow us into the uncertainty.

Trust speeds up the process because it gives us access to the need beneath the request.

Without trust, an offer to help can feel like criticism, interference, or an attempt to gain visibility. With trust, the same offer can feel like partnership.

That is why judgment and emotional intelligence matter so much. It is not enough to notice a need. We must understand how—and whether—to enter it.

Do I arrive with curiosity or with a predetermined answer?

Am I helping the person who owns the problem, or am I unintentionally displacing them?

Am I contributing to their success, or am I using their problem as a stage on which to demonstrate my own value?

Am I creating greater capability, or simply making myself indispensable?

Those questions reveal both the gift and the danger within the mantra.

“Find a need and fill it” can inspire initiative, service, curiosity, and creativity. It can also lead to overreach, exhaustion, rescuing, and the quiet belief that we must solve everything in order to be valuable.

I am still learning the difference.

Perhaps the more complete version of the mantra is this:

Find a need that matters to someone else. Seek first to understand it. Bring whatever you genuinely have to offer—a question, a connection, a framework, an idea, or a solution. Then help create value without making yourself the center of the story.

The motive matters.

I never set out to apply this principle in order to further my career. I wasn’t strategically searching for problems that would make me more visible or important. I simply found that I enjoyed helping people solve meaningful problems.

I cared less about position, title, and level and more about needs, relationships, and creating value.

Ironically, opportunities followed.

Doors opened. I met new people. I was invited into unfamiliar parts of the business. My work became broader and more meaningful. Even compensation seemed to follow naturally behind the value that had been created.

But it only worked because advancement was not the reason for doing it.

People can usually feel the difference between someone who wants to help and someone who wants to be seen helping.

Maybe that is the real algorithm:

Need + curiosity + trust + judgment + authentic contribution = value.

And perhaps motive sits beneath all of it.

I still believe we choose to lead rather than wait for leadership to be assigned to us. But choosing to lead does not always mean declaring the vision or charging ahead alone.

Sometimes it means noticing something important that another person is trying to accomplish and asking:

“How can I help?”

Sometimes it means solving the problem.

Sometimes it means connecting a few dots.

Sometimes it means offering a framework that allows people to see their work differently.

And sometimes it means helping another person recognize that they already have the capacity to become part of the solution.

I never set out to use this mantra to advance my career. I simply discovered that when I consistently helped other people solve meaningful problems, new opportunities seemed to find me.

Success followed the value.

But the value had to come first.

The City Remembered Me

I went back to Brasília expecting to remember.

I was not prepared for the feeling that the city remembered me.

I was back for maybe the last high school reunion for Escola Americana de Brasilia. EAB - The school had grown up. There was new paint, remodeling, and a polished surface that belonged to another generation of students. But beneath it all, I could still see the old EAB—the concrete bleachers, walls, and floors that seemed to borrow their substance from Brasília itself.

The city of Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer had always spoken in concrete: ambitious, improbable, sometimes austere, yet capable of taking shapes no one had seen before.

I found myself wondering if perhaps we had been made from some of that same material.

We had come from different countries, cultures, races, religions, and families. Brasília was still discovering what it would become, and EAB was a young school gathering students from all over the world while figuring out its own identity.

Were we somehow the missing pieces of both?

There was no internet, no cell phones, no endless stream of entertainment, and no real sports scene. There was little of the conventional city life that might have allowed us to remain strangers.

We had Brasília. We had EAB. And we had one another.

So, we built something.

Concrete gave Brasília both its structure and its visual language. EAB gave us a language of our own.

It wasn’t English or Portuguese.

It was the language of acceptance, friendship, connection, and love.

We learned to speak it not because we were alike, but perhaps because we needed one another. Our differences were not obstacles we first had to overcome. They were simply part of who we were.

There was room for a skinny kid with an Afro and puka shells. There was room for a not-so-confident kid who never had to feel solitary. There was room to be different without always having to explain the difference.

All you needed to be was yourself.

And somehow, that was always enough.

At the dinner dance, I found myself seeing someone across the room, recognizing the smile before I recognized the face, and suddenly forty years collapsed into nothing. There would be an embrace, a name spoken exactly the way I remembered it, and the strange realization that some part of us had simply been waiting to resume the conversation.

It kept happening.

A familiar laugh. A hand on my shoulder. An abraço that seemed to hold all the intervening years inside it. We remembered things about one another that had long since disappeared from our own memories. We introduced spouses and family members, told stories, filled in the missing years, and somehow picked up a conversation that had begun when we were teenagers.

How was that possible?

How could it feel as though we had never left?

We began speaking our old language again almost immediately, without practice or translation. It was there in every embrace, every remembered story, every generous introduction, and every moment when the years between us seemed to disappear.

There we were, familiar in our own skin all over again.

Of course, we had changed. We had followed different paths, built careers, raised families, and experienced joy, disappointment, tragedy, sadness, and even death. We had become people our teenage selves could not possibly have imagined.

But something between us had remained.

We had all gone on to improvise very different lives, but I could still hear something familiar underneath. The original rhythm was still there. Different melodies, perhaps, but somehow the same song.

What had we created together all those years ago?

Was it simply the intensity of being young and far from home? Was it the isolation of Brasília? Was it the experience of attending a small international school where people continually arrived and left? Or had we somehow created a kind of belonging strong enough to survive distance, silence, and time?

I am still not sure.

What I do know is that these people remembered a version of me that few others had known. They remembered me before careers, titles, children, successes, disappointments, and all the other layers adulthood eventually added.

I had not returned because an essential piece of me was missing. I had been whole all along. But through their memories, their affection, and the ease with which we found one another again, they reminded me that the person I had become at EAB had never disappeared.

They did not put me back together.

They helped me recognize the original architecture, just like those good old cement bleachers in the gym once again.  They were always there.

The EAB experience had yielded good fruit. I could see it in the warmth, acceptance, and generosity of spirit surrounding me. None of us had become the same kind of person, nor should we have. But we each seemed to carry some variation of the same theme—a willingness to make room for people, to cross boundaries, and to find connection in our differences.

Perhaps that was what EAB gave us.

Not merely a place where we once belonged, but a way of helping other people belong.

Near the end of the trip, I found myself thinking again about the Candangos statue and those two figures that have followed me for so much of my life.

They do not stand alone.

They lean toward one another, each helping the other bear the weight of what they came to build.

For years, I thought of the Candangos primarily as builders—people transplanted from somewhere else who came together to construct a capital in an improbable place. That still feels like part of our story. We were also transplanted. We came from somewhere else, but together we made a life in Brasília and filled a young school with friendship, memory, and love.

But perhaps I had overlooked the most important part of the statue.

The figures are still connected.

After all these years, they are still leaning toward one another.

Maybe that is why the statue has meant so much to me. It is not simply an image of what we built then. It is an image of what somehow remains between us now.

All these years later, we are still standing—not unchanged, but recognizable. We have each carried different burdens and traveled very different roads.

But when we came together again, we remembered the language.

And just like the Candangos, we discovered that we were still leaning toward one another. 

 I will never forget this experience. It was a Hall of Fame memory that I will cherish forever.

Ivy of the Light

 

Suddenly, she was here.

Another new baby, arriving just after Miller—her brand-new cousin and the second little girl to join our family this year. “My cup runneth over,” I believe the saying goes.

Although her cry is certainly noticeable, there is something quiet and serene about Ivy. It is almost as if she slipped into our lives without too much fanfare.

What I have noticed most is how I feel when I hold her. Whether I am feeding her or rocking her to sleep, I immediately begin to feel calm. I find myself relaxing as I look at her.

When she is awake and becomes comfortable, she sometimes pauses and smiles. She doesn’t make a sound. She simply offers a quiet, beautiful smile. It brings me comfort and peace. I appreciate that about her.

I remain transfixed by the transformative effect a new baby can have on the human heart and spirit. Each child seems to arrive with a unique template—an individual design already imprinted upon the soul and emanating from the face.

So tiny. So powerful. So noble.

On Sunday, Braden—her father—and several of us encircled Ivy at church while he offered a special prayer and blessing on her behalf to God, the Father who had so recently sent her to us.

Braden said that she would be known throughout her life as Ivy Dawn Brown.

At that moment, I realized that I had not really paid much attention to her middle name. But as I began to think about the name Dawn, Braden spoke through the prayer about some of the special things he and her mother, Abby, had already noticed about her.

It was all about light.

He spoke of how she emanated light and seemed to attract light. He blessed her that, through her own seeking of light and truth, she would draw others toward the gospel of Jesus Christ.

As he spoke, my mind was carried into a vista where early morning light was breaking over the mountains, almost as if it were beckoning to her. I imagined scores of people being gathered by her light.

It occurred to me in that moment that her name must have been inspired.

Dawn.

Ivy Dawn.

Yes, she has light designed into her body, her spirit, and even her name.

How beautiful is that?

Her name carries meaning. Ivy speaks of life that endures—of strength, faithfulness, and growth. Dawn is the promise of light returning, a universal symbol of hope, clarity, and new beginnings.

Together, the names feel almost prophetic: enduring life joined with the hopeful light of a new day.

It is as if her parents embedded their hopes and dreams for her directly into her name—or perhaps they were drawn to the name before any of us fully understood why.

I found myself lost in light during that blessing. I did not hear many of the other words, but I will always remember Ivy in that moment. I will remember her as light as I watch her grow into her little self and face the world ahead.

The prayer ended.

Everything felt right.

I will think about that moment each time I hold her and, in the years to come, as I watch her receive and reflect the light that will undoubtedly come her way.

As I returned to my seat, one final thought settled into my heart:

We all need more light in this world.

Thank God for Ivy of the Light.

Famous Last Words

This past Saturday I attended the funeral of my uncle Bill. He was a couple of years younger than my Dad but always seemed more of a big brother to him. Without going into details, he was an incredible man. His life full of service to church, family and community. Those who gave him tribute spoke of a man that quietly and persistently "endured to the end" and left a large wake of touched lives. I felt so inspired listening to all that was said of him and found myself unconsciously reflecting upon my own life and then jumping forward in my mind's eye to my own funeral...."what would be said of Aaron Brown?"

What would I really want to be said of me? Many things came to my mind in a flash, but they all fell short. I realized that many would probably say things like "he was fun", "always smiled", "easy to get along with" etc..... As I listened to myself vette these out, I realized it wasn't enough. I wanted to hear stories where I did things for others that went "unnoticed" and anonymous, like I was hearing about Uncle Bill....I wanted to hear stories from my kids that said, "I watched my dad help others and led by quiet example" or "My Dad often gave more than he really had the means to give". I didn't want to hear about "things" but rather a lot about "people".

I was very grateful for a few quiet introspective moments that helped me sift all these thoughts and recalibrate my heart and priorities. I realized it was time to shift into a gear higher and reverse the trajectory of my soft pedaling into mediocrity and stretch myself to do more, but quietly. To love for charity's sake, not because of duty or because someone would notice. 

 I left rejuvenated and realized I understood that funerals can provide a wonderful opportunity to evaluate oneself--to take stock, check and measure where one stands. Not compare.... but rather, take the best of those who have passed on and strive to apply it to our own lives to be better. 

 Thank you, Uncle Bill, for a consecrated life of enduring example. I won't get up at 4am and milk cows like you did, but I can certainly do better in my own modern realm.

And Everyone Came to See Her

I have been to a lot of baby blessings in my life. More than I can count. And somewhere along the way I noticed something that I couldn't quite explain — that they consistently do something to a room that has nothing to do with the words being spoken.

I wasn't expecting today to be any different. And then Miller happened.

There is something about a baby that functions like gravity. She doesn't argue her case. She doesn't perform or persuade. She simply arrives — fresh from somewhere the rest of us have long since forgotten — and something in the room shifts. Guards come down. Shoulders drop. People who haven't looked each other in the eye for a while find themselves standing in the same circle, smiling at the same tiny face.

Miller did that today.

I believe babies are closer to heaven than we are. Not metaphorically — I mean it in the most literal way I can manage. Their innocence isn't something they've worked for or protected. It's just what they are. And that kind of purity has a way of inviting everyone in — angels and people alike — without a single word... just a silent sweet invitation.

Today there were people in that room who needed to be there. Not just to celebrate Miller, though there was plenty of that. There were hearts that needed softening, pride that needed somewhere to go, old feelings that had been sitting in unnecessary prisons for too long. I don't think everyone who walked through the door knew that about themselves. But Miller knew. I really believe she did.

In fact —  I wouldn't be surprised if before she came here she raised her little hand and said "I have to go now." Just in time. Arriving not a moment too late to remind a room full of people what actually matters. A small piece of heaven sent ahead, like a light turned on before the guests arrive.

There was a sub-theme running quietly through today that I don't want to gloss over. Forgiveness. Acceptance. The particular kind of grace that a baby makes available just by being present — because you cannot hold a grudge and hold a newborn at the same time. Something about her made the weight of whatever anyone was carrying feel a little lighter and a little less worth keeping.

That is the miracle of Miller. Not just that she is here, but when she is here. And who she gathered.

I looked at her little face and those bright blue eyes and I thought — she has already done more today than most of us manage in a month. She made people smile who needed to smile. She drew people together who needed drawing. She reminded a room full of adults, without saying a single word, who they actually are.

Alexa and Trenton — I hope that years from now you look back on this day and remember not just the words that were spoken, but who was standing in that room. And I hope you feel glad they were there. Because Miller made sure of it.

She raised her hand. She came just in time. And we are all a little better for it.

A Kid from Madeira

 I arrived in Funchal on February 13th, 1985 — a week after a kid named Cristiano Ronaldo was born on that same island. I had just spent ten months on my mission in mainland Portugal and was thrilled to be sent to Madeira. I'd heard how special the island was, and I couldn't wait to see it for myself.

Is it possible I crossed his family's path at some point — in a grocery store, on the cobblestone streets, at a weekend market? Maybe. Maybe not. But somewhere on that small island, our timelines quietly overlapped, years before either of us had any idea what that would come to mean.

I didn't expect a kid from Madeira to turn my heart to a new allegiance. I was already a soccer fan by then — I'd spent four years in Brazil and lived through a World Cup there. I saw the heart of a nation rise up in a way I'd never seen before. Zico, Sócrates, Romário — my heroes were already set in stone. I didn't think there was room for anyone else.

Then, in 2003, I started hearing about a teenage phenom turning heads at Manchester United. Faster than a cat. Dribbling like nobody else. A confidence way beyond his years. Landon and I watched as many of his games as we could. He was brilliant and a little out of control back then — all flash, not much restraint. But he learned. He started dribbling less and passing more, became an expert at being in the box at exactly the right moment, and developed an uncanny ability to hang in the air and time a header like no one else. He leads all players in history with 153 header goals. They once studied him receiving corner kicks in the dark, and he still headed them in. His timing was, as the Brazilians say, "fora do comum" — out of the ordinary.

He moved to Real Madrid and did some real damage — hundreds of goals. I was hooked. I followed him from there on, watching not just the player but the man he was building around himself. He never followed the crowd of his contemporaries. He didn't drink. He didn't party. He started a family early and stayed devoted to it. He became known for a kind of seriousness about his craft that bordered on obsession — the work ethic, the discipline, the single-minded pursuit of being the best for his team, his country, and his own legacy. Confident? Absolutely. Hated by plenty of critics? Also, absolutely. But no one has been more clutch in the biggest moments — he has scored winning goals, often in the final minutes, in at least eleven matches that mattered most.

No one else has played in six World Cups. No one else has scored in six. For more than twenty years he carried Portugal on his back, hoping to finally deliver the one trophy that kept slipping away.

Today, Portugal fell to Spain, 1–0.

Today, he said goodbye.

It was hard to watch the emotion surface in his body as he walked the turf one last time, his face on the big screen for millions to see. What struck me most was the day before, when he was as calm as I've ever seen him. In his press conference, he carried a stoic confidence that he had already done all he could do. Win or lose, he said, it wouldn't matter — he had given everything.

*"It's about enjoying it as much as possible. This will be my last World Cup, but let's hope tomorrow isn't my last game. The day will come. But I'll be honest. Whatever happens tomorrow, Cristiano will leave with a clear conscience, not 100%, but 1,000%. Because I've given everything in football. I don't need it, I have a good life, but it's about passion. I play football because I love it… You have to enjoy every day. I've scored 3 goals in this World Cup, maybe I am not doing too badly?"*

That was the epitome of leaving nothing on the field.

Watching him afterward, I could sense this was his last chance to soak in a lifetime of showing up and giving everything to the game. Something rose up in me, too — I found myself wondering what must have been going through his mind, what he was feeling in that moment. It was bittersweet. A sense of loss: Portugal will never have a star quite like this again. We won't see another player like him. There are other greats, and that's a wonderful thing, but he is singular. And alongside the loss, I felt something like freedom — freedom for him. The media hasn't always been kind to him. He's carried plenty of critics along the way. But he wore that burden well, and that might be what I admire most about him — not the goals, but the way he handled the weight of being who he was, in public, for twenty years, without losing himself or his family in the process.

It makes me wonder if I am letting the hardships I face refine me or sour me.

*"I've scored 3 goals in this World Cup, maybe I am not doing too badly…?"*

I could say that about many things in my life. I raised four kids who all played soccer. I stayed married to Chelta for 36 years. Both had bumps along the way, but there were far more incredible "game days" than I could ever count — and when I think about what I'm leaving behind, what others will remember, I find myself asking the same question he did. 

Maybe I am not doing too badly? 

I didn't expect a World Cup match to affect me the way it did today. I didn't see it coming — the emotion, the sense of an era quietly closing. I found myself sitting with all of it, wondering why.

Upon more reflection, I think I finally know. It's not really about the goals, or the records, or even the football. It's that somewhere along the way, a kid from Madeira — born the same week I set foot on his island — became a kind of proof that discipline and passion, sustained over decades, still mean something. That you can carry a nation's hopes and a world's criticism and still come out the other side with, as he put it, a clear conscience.

Today wasn't just his last World Cup game. It felt, for a moment, like watching a small chapter of my own life close too.

The Portuguese have a word for what I'm feeling, one that never quite survives the trip into English: *saudade*. It isn't just nostalgia, and it isn't just longing. It's the ache of missing something — or someone — even while it's still right in front of you, because you already know it won't be there much longer and you may not see it again. I learned that word on the same island where he was born, long before I understood how much I'd feel it one day.

I have many saudades where CR7 is concerned. For the kid from Madeira. For the games he gave Landon and me to watch. For twenty years of a nation carried on one man's back.

Obrigado, Cristiano.

The Wall

I wonder how often my parents hit that wall. The one they never let us see because they knew better than to share it. I wonder how many times one of us — the kids, without knowing, without meaning to — made them feel like failures.

My mother struggled her whole life to feel worthy of her children. Self-doubt was her companion in a way I didn't fully understand until I got older. I used to watch it settle into her — not dramatically, but slowly, like weather moving in. It sank into her bones sometimes. I had enormous empathy for her and also, quietly, the sinking realization that some of what put it there came from us. From me.

I paid attention to that. Not because I was particularly wise. Because it was hard to watch someone you love carry something that heavy. Especially as I saw it accumulate over time.

I think about her more these days...

I guess this is what parents sign up for — though nobody tells you that clearly enough at the beginning. You love with everything you have, and it still goes sideways. Your best intentions still land wrong. You make the wrong assumptions. You impose. You overstep. You say the thing you thought would help and watch it do the opposite. You fumble, and then you fumble your recovery of the fumble. The gap between what you meant and what was received can feel impossible to close.

What I didn't understand when I was young — what took me embarrassingly long to learn — is how much damage I caused without knowing I was causing it. How many times I was the weather moving in on someone else, moving them ever closer to their wall.

My father told me once, quietly, that he was disappointed in me. I had been untruthful and he knew it. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't lecture. He just said he thought more highly of me than what he'd seen. That was all.

It felt like a kick in the gut.

I held onto my resentment for a day or two. I tried to justify myself, to build a case, to be the wronged party. I was good at that. But eventually the case collapsed because it was made of nothing, and what was left underneath was just the plain fact that I had let someone down who loved me. It took a minute. But I got there. And I got better because I wanted to get better.

A brother of mine once came to me with something he'd found out — behavior of mine that embarrassed him. I wanted to disappear.  My first instinct was defensiveness, then shame, then the old question: who gave him the right? But he hadn't come to wound me. He had come because he loved me enough to say the uncomfortable thing. That distinction, between someone who wants to hurt you and someone who loves you enough to risk hurting you, took me a long time to learn to feel.

A friend once told me I was too sarcastic. That people couldn't tell when I was serious. That it was landing as disrespect even when I meant it as warmth. I was genuinely shocked. I thought I was being funny. I thought it was charming. It took me a long time sitting with that one to understand what he was actually seeing — that sarcasm, however playful the intention, can make people feel like they don't deserve a straight answer. That it can be a way of saying something cutting while claiming they didn't know so they can't be accountable or blamed.  That over time it erodes the very trust you think you're building with humor. I remember an apology tour that lasted about a year with friends that had been targets.

I didn't like what I saw when I finally looked clearly. I still don't, on the days I slip back into old patterns.

But here is what I am grateful for: that they told me. That my father, my brother, my friend — none of them stayed silent to keep the peace. None of them decided I wasn't worth the discomfort of honesty. Their love came disguised as something that didn't feel like love at first. It took me time to unwrap it.

I am sorry it took so long. I am sorry for what that slowness cost them.

---

I don't have a tidy ending for any of this. I'm not looking for one today. Feeling a little lost but finding some comfort in the fact that I simply don't have the answers. 

What I know is that love is not always recognizable in the moment it arrives. Sometimes it comes as disappointment quietly spoken. Sometimes it comes as a mirror held up by someone who didn't have to bother. Sometimes it comes as the willingness to stay in the conversation even when the conversation is hard.  What is true is that everyone annoys everyone sooner or later.  There isn't a domain where there isn't pain or discomfort.  It doesn't exist.  So, like in a movie I just saw recently, a separated couple finally came back and asked each other:  

"I want to be unhappy with you. Let's be unhappy together."

I could easily replace "unhappy" with "annoying".  I got things wrong. I still do. I am trying to see that clearly — not to punish myself with it, but to let it make me more patient. More humble.  More willing to hear.

My mother carried more than she should have. Some of that was ours to carry for her and we didn't know it yet.

I think about her more these days...

I hope whoever reads this thinks about someone too. Someone who loved them in a way that didn't feel like love at first. Someone who was trying, imperfectly, stubbornly, to close the gap between what they meant and what was received.

The wall is real. Every parent hits it.

What I am still learning is that the wall is not the end of the story. It is just the place where the easier version of love stops working, and something harder and truer has to take over.

I'm not there yet. But I'm still trying to get up.

Just not today.

Today I will sit with my back against that wall and think about Mom more these days...

Finding Myself in Seoul

Late at night, when the house is quiet, I find myself in Seoul. Or rather, Seoul finds me.

I never set out to become someone who watches Korean dramas. It sounds almost embarrassing to admit — a grown man, alone with subtitles and a bowl of cereal, completely undone by people he will never meet, speaking a language he doesn't understand. And yet here I am. Three years in, no apologies left.

The question I've been sitting with is why. Not why K-dramas are good — they often are, remarkably so. But why they reach something in me that almost nothing else does.

I think I finally know.

When I was a boy moving between countries — Colombia, Indonesia, Brazil, Portugal, wherever my father's postings took us — I developed a habit I never quite named. Whenever we left a place, I would fantasize about going back as a spirit. Not to change anything. Just to follow my friends through their lives. To watch how they grew up without me. To be present, invisibly, in the rooms I once belonged in.

That is exactly what a good K-drama feels like.

I have thought about it and have realized it is about how I relate to them and the bridge they build for me.  They remind me of who I am and the life I lived.  That sounds very dramatic itself... but it is true.  They capture feelings I have had my whole life but not always being to express them.  Is it the romances themselves?  No, those can be great but often it is other elements that stand out or that spark deep seated emotions.

  I believe that the magic of a good K drama is in the writing first.  These writers to me are poets.... They somehow capture the eloquence of the almost.  That hand that reaches but doesn't quite grasp.  The emotions that are felt completely but spoken only in the last episode or never at all.  There is this amazing natural tension between restraint and longing - which I feel I always experienced when I left a country that I lived in.   The suffering carried alone until it can't be anymore.  I never understood what to do with all the emotions I carried from friendships after leaving.  I would often fantasize about time travel to go back or to follow my friends like a spirit being just watching how their lives unfolded over time....Love isn't communicated the same way overseas as it is here.  Many cultures communicate love sideways, through action and presence rather than declaration.  When someone does declare it in a K drama it is almost like holding ones breath because it doesn't happen very much. So much of the emotion is held and shown in nuance, like the food prepared without explanation, or the meaningful glance. 

 The fantasy dramas  where there are other worldly beings that come to earth and have to learn what it is like to be human, to be mortal, to love something they will eventually lose -- That is me, the 3rd culture kid turned into mythology.  I am the one who alway came from somewhere else, some other place that was home temporarily but never permanent, learning to adapt, learning the local customs, loving the place fully knowing I would ultimately leave it.  These stories unlock something inside -- No, these are not foreign to me,

I am watching something that finally speaks my native language. 

A language I understand immediately.  

K-drama writers are poets of the everyday. They sprinkle symbols and metaphors like little easter eggs throughout a series — you have to be paying attention, and I always am. Hollywood rarely trusts its audience that way. K-dramas do.

Food is never just food. Sharing a meal is an act of intimacy, of familial care, of love or comfort that doesn't know how to say its own name out loud. I miss that extension of hospitality from the countries I grew up in — the way someone felt genuinely honored if you accepted what they offered. Not obligated. Honored. There is a difference, and I haven't always felt that Americans get that.

Rain scenes are iconic in these dramas, and the umbrella is never just an umbrella. When a character offers one to another, the gesture says what the words cannot:" I've got you." I watched that kind of care expressed differently in every country I ever lived in — Colombia, Indonesia, Brazil, Portugal — but the genuineness underneath was always the same. It just wore different clothes.

The fantasy dramas really get me — the ones where otherworldly beings descend to earth and have to learn what it means to be mortal. To love something they will inevitably lose. I understand those characters in my bones. I was always the one arriving from somewhere else--always termporarily but also always  knowing somewhere underneath that the goodbye was already scheduled with a date on a calendar. These stories don't feel foreign to me. They feel like my autobiography depicted as storytelling.

One drama in particular — My Mister — has stayed with me longer than most. In the final scene, two people who have quietly, profoundly shaped each other meet in a cafe. There is warmth. There is maturity. There is happiness. And there is restraint — that beautiful K-drama restraint that Hollywood would never allow. You spent the entire series wondering if love would declare itself. It never did. And it was perfect. Not unrequited love exactly. Just a little longing, left carefully in place, like a single candle kept burning in a window.

The constant reminder of having to say good bye reminds me of that 10 year old boy realizing he would never see any of his friends again.  This was before internet, smart phones and technology that now connect all of us.  The feeling of permanence of those good byes is something that my children might never know-- The sense of that permanent loss was crushing... I am not sure there is a single person that they cannot look up through social media and find today. Not a judgment, just an observation.  It is quite wonderful when you think about it.

I guess while I can get lost in the stories, the script, the performances and the symbols, at the end of the day, I find myself feeling like home.  Yes... Comfortable, as if understood by an unseen audience.  

Back to the 10 year old boy who fantasized about becoming a ghost — floating back through the rooms he'd left, watching his friends grow up without him — never really stopped. He just got older and found a different way to travel. Late at night, when the house is quiet, he follows strangers through Seoul. He watches them carry their pain alone until they can't anymore. He watches them love sideways, through food and umbrellas and footsteps listened to in the dark. And something in him exhales, a knowing sigh.

Because the longing, it turns out, was never a wound. It was always a language. One I have been speaking my whole life, waiting for someone to speak back.

And then a writer in Korea did.

Advice for Life.....for Free

I will never forget the first time I heard a most unusual and unique Pop hit called:

EVERBODY'S FREE (TO WEAR SUNSCREEN) 12/06/1999

I was in my car when I first heard it and found it so catchy. I had no idea who the artist was and like every other time I have heard a great song on the radio, the DJ's didn't announce the name at the end! (Ever happen to you?--drives me nuts!!) I remember how distinctively some of the words and concepts in the song immediately felt "right on" to me. I found myself trying really hard to listen intently while trying not to get in a wreck at the same time. It was hard...

When I finally found out it was Baz Luhrman I was thrown for a loop. I only knew him from his first movie "Strictly Ballroom" which is one of my favorites. (*Highly recommended)

So, hearing a tune by him was odd and out of place, but yet at the same time, it wasn't as he is such a versatile and creative individual. In fact, I am not sure if he ever released any other record since, although he is extremely musical and weaves it into all of his work. (Moulin Rouge was incredibly interesting and his noveau modern interpretation of Romeo+Juliet was another eccentric brilliant piece *Not for all).

I am not sure what hit me today that reminded me of this most interesting little record, but as I pulled it out of the "cold storage" for the first time in many many years I was hit by how much of it still resounded in my bones.

There are nuggets of truth here, at least for me and I see lots of application in my life. In fact, I found myself mentally highlighting particular words and/or phrases that have meaning for me. In ended up doing so in RED. Ironically, I must admit that I have actually taken and pondered much of his advice, which he openly acknowledges as "worthless", which is probably why I listened a bit more carefully from the onset.

I encourage you to click on the link above and see the video for yourself. I have posted the words below. I may elaborate on some highlighted sections over time. Some now and some later..... Still need to think about that.

I hope you enjoy as much as I have and if you don't, maybe it will still make you think and do a self check on your own life.....are you close or far? Noone says you have to be one or the other, but for me, I want to be "close", so I keep checking in on myself to see if I am still dancing.......no matter where I am.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’97Wear Sunscreen

 

"If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, oh never mind, you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now, how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked, you are not as fat as you imagine.

 

Don’t worry about the future, or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you

 

Sing

 

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss

Don’t waste your time on jealousy, sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind, the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults, if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life, the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

 

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, Maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary What ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

 Enjoy your body, use it every way you can, don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Brother and sister together we'll make it through. Someday a spirit will take you and guide you there. I know you've been hurtin', but I've been waitin' to be there for you. And I'll be there just helping you out whenever I can.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings, they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard, Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel....

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

 Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, Maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

........But trust me on the sunscreen

Baby M

 Is this for real......?  Can't be!!

How......?   

Where.....?  

Who is this most delightful visitor?

What is it about this tiny little person that can melt the hardest heart, bring the mighty to their knees and create an immediate reverance amongst beasts or mankind?  

How can she do this...?  How can she emotionally destroy us without making a sound?  I do not know other than that she is not of this world.  The world can create many beautiful things, but it can't create the unique and special aura and heavenly awe of a newborn baby. 

No....this gift only comes from one place, and it isn't here.

How does she capture  my gaze so instantly and intently.  She isn't even trying..... She knows not what she does.  If she is in the room all living things are drawn to her like a powerful magnetic draws metal.  We turn off the TV. We find soft music, We drop what we are doing because all other tasks become irrelevant when this little princess shows up. We want to change the environment to suit the royalty that she is.

Completely helpfless......, yet commands control completely!  What is this power that she wields so innocently that affects all.  She is no respecter of persons, she is willing to share it all with anyone and willing to absorb any affection and love from anyone as well.  She depends upon it.  It is her nourishment, and she reflects it back in spades!  We, the observer gets the best part of that trade for sure.

One single little coo can send her mom into the stratosphere!  What happens when she figures out her first smile..... game over! It's like a little heart attack that jolts ones' heart.

To think that our Father in Heaven would grant this unexplainable experience that only He understands the totality of, with us.  Maybe this is one of the only ways that we can relate to Him, by sharing a tiny glimpse of how He feels about each one of us..... times a trillion!

What do I see when I look at Miller......

She is selfless.........she is pure light..........Yes, she is perfection personified

In the prettiest package that could ever be presented.  

Pink suits her just fine, no?

Miller, you have already done what you were supposed to do -- completely change our hearts and remind us of who we are and why we are here.  

All hail to Baby M.