Something A Smarter Man Might Avoid

As a young man, my Dad would–on occasion–give me advice about something I was determined to do, but probably shouldn’t. Being a father myself these many years later, I realize that the skill involved was in trying to encourage your child on what the right thing to do might be–without actually telling them what to do.

The genius in my Dad’s way of doing this was to make it a bit of southern homespun philosophy, not unlike the kind that Andy Griffith would dispense to his son Opie on television.

In my Dad’s version of this father-son “moment of zen”, he would say on more than on occasion that whatever I was thinking of doing was perhaps “something a smarter man might avoid.”

It was his gentle way of telling me that I might be close to the edge of my abilities or my sanity.

He was kind enough never to specify which.

I bring all this up, because I’ve embarked on something that has my Dad’s words playing in my head.

After proposing for more time than I care to admit, that the television station I work for should do some editorial commentary as part of our newscasts…they finally took me up on the idea.

And because apparently there were other folks who got the same advice that my father tried to pass along to me, guess who ended up being the person who ended up with the task of presenting these commentaries on the air?

That’s right, yours truly. Because I believe if you are going to push hard enough for an idea to get to be a reality, you better be prepared to do whatever it takes to make that reality happen.

You can take a look at what I’m doing as part of my regular job these days by clicking here.

Only time will tell if Dad would have been right on this one, too.