A Guide to Living Life to the Fullest – From My Dad

Keep life simple.
You will feel fulfillment in your work when the goal is helping people. But that’s not where all your fulfillment will come from.
Work extremely hard, start your own business, be your own boss, but know how to balance work and home life. At the end of the day realize all you really want is to be outside, up on a mountain or by a river. Working in the cabin, doing something active as a family.
Always put the jeep in 1st going down the mountain, especially in snow. When sliding, turn your tires in the opposite direction of where you want your car to go. Drift behind large trucks to save gas (only works if you are in a ’76 Shirako). Make your children believe you are magic by stopping distant waves and knowing precisely when the microwave is going to beep. Always say hello when you see someone you know, and if they don’t hear you, yell their name louder. Don’t spend money if you don’t have to. Be a good steward. Have all the right insurances. Keep every receipt. Laugh loudly. Pray. “You can be bitter or you can be better.” Start everything with prayer. Seek wise counsel. Travel to new places, or old favorite ones. The kids really will be fine. Lock your doors. Simplify your life, don’t gather up so much stuff. Vacuum the house on Saturday mornings, even if it wakes up your sleeping teenagers. Call that person out in a funny way, but don’t go too far. Don’t use nasal spray. Don’t drink diet drinks. Always see opportunity, possibility. Sing along with the radio, especially the ‘oohs’ and ‘yeah-yeah’s’. James Taylor + Bread = Appalacian music. Don’t let that person who is bringing you down have any hold in your life. Let them go. Say goodbye. Say I love you. Come home for lunch. Throw your kids high in the air. Hold your baby in hilarious ways for pictures. I mean it, make it look like your 9 month old is floating alone in a lake. Anything that will scare any passing onlookers. Take the kids out past the waves. Brake at that part in that song: “I just want to stop and thank you baby, I just want to stop-” [brake] (caution: slam brakes if in neighborhood, tap if on the highway). Start to chuckle quietly during the saddest, sweetest moments in Remember the Titans so your family won’t know you’re actually crying. But they’ll know anyway.

And later, when you realize it, accept God’s plan for you in the calmest, most trusting, and graceful of ways. Don’t try to say goodbye, because it’s not goodbye. And then rejoice, for you are finally home.

By LB in honor of KB