A Letter to Mason
Dear Mason,
As you grow older and start living your own life, you will see that life will not always goes according to plan. Your mom and I will try to be there for as long and as much as we can, but unfortunately one day we will not be here anymore.
I want to tell you some guidelines or principles that I have followed in my life that I believe has helped me grow as a person and through some trying times.
- Nobody said life is supposed to be easy and you should never expect to get things handed to you. As you grow older, you will find yourself surrounded by people who love you and willing to yield or give you things, but never ever expect things to get handed to you. Show gratitude when you are given anything and do not be afraid to share.
- There is no problem that doesn’t have a solution. No matter how bad or bleak things are, take time to think things through. If need be, give yourself time to look at the problems from a distance. At a certain point, jump in with your best solution. If it causes more problems, well, there is no problem that doesn’t have a solution.
- Love yourself and be gentle with yourself. It is important to push yourself and to measure yourself against who you are yesterday, but give yourself a break sometimes.
- Never send a message with a hammer that you can send with a feather. In more than one occasion, you will find yourself angry at a situation, or yourself or certain people around you, but remember that verbal words have no undo button; pick your words carefully and always start with the feather. It makes the hammer all that scarier when it drops.
- If it takes you less than 2 minutes to do, do it right away.
- Always make your bed. After all, it only takes around 2 minutes and if you had a bad day, at least your bed is made.
- Be a gentleman; let girls go first, hold doors for them. It doesn’t make you a pussy, or them weak. It just means you respect them. Remember, your mom was a girl too.
- Say Thank you and Sorry when you have to. It makes all the difference in the world and it says a lot about who you are as a person.
- Read as much as you can. You don’t have to memorize the whole book or whatever it is you are reading, but if you learnt one thing from what you have read, then you are halfway there.
- When you are older, memories about partying with friends make a good conversation topic. They are just that, Conversation Topic. There is nothing wrong with letting loose once in a while (trust me, your dad has let loose a little too much when he was younger, but what you regret is mostly what you have missed out because of the partying and what you could have gotten started doing instead of partying.
Love and always with pride,
Dad
