You learn to be an intentional dad by being mindful of the precious moments with your family. You learn from others who do this better than you. You learn through your pain and that of others.

Although this story on CNN is very painful, I learned so much from it. It talks of courage, absolute love, pain, family and what is really important in this life. Our time is so short here with each other. Be intentional. Be mindful and work hard to live each moment.

Read The Gift of Charles.

Charles’ aunt, Janice Mays, at a Celebration of Life Services read a message she imagined Charles might’ve written:

I won the battle. I am in heaven now. That ole cancer has no way to cause me any more pain or discomfort, nor does it live within me. So, to my family and friends, thank you for being a part of my life and loving me in your own special way.

I send to the Thompson family my most heart-felt thanks for allowing their story to be told. My deepest condolences on the passing of their son, Charles. The world is less without him.

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Find more great how to be a dad and live a mindful and meaningful life articles at A Dad's Life - A web column for fathers on current events, technology and earning the title of #1 dad!

You’ve heard it before. Things that matter take real effort. You need to really want it. Being a dad is just like that. You need to work at it every day and you will improve. And it’s so worth it.

Here’s a video to get you motivated to give it your all every day.

Enjoy your Sunday with your family.

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1. Sunday morning pancakes
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Find more great how to be a dad and live a mindful and meaningful life articles at A Dad's Life - A web column for fathers on current events, technology and earning the title of #1 dad!

As I write this my daughter is with friends in a limo on her way to an eighth grade prom. It’s her first date. I’m ecstatic for her and hope she has a great time. I think she’ll remember this day for the rest of her life. I certainly have enough pictures to make sure she can’t forget it.

So, why do I feel frozen inside?

My wife is nervous about the whole thing but definitely very happy too. I can see it in her. She “gets it”. She’s been there and, obviously, can relate with what my daughter is feeling. By the way, my daughter is cool and collected.

I, on the other hand, am awash with emotions that guys have a tough time with.  Scenes from Father of the Bride keep flashing at unexpected times. Appetite’s gone. Yet, I am truly happy about the whole thing.

The boy’s a good kid that we’ve known since he was a baby. We’re friends with the parents. It’s at the school gym with chaperones. Why am I feeling this way? I know I’m thinking that and I’m SURE my wife is wondering the same thing.

It’s understandable that my wife feels this way, I suppose. She can relate with what my daughter is going through but not really what I’m going through. Heck, I can barely articulate what I’m going through. However, I do think this is a common occurrence for dads. I think I’m feeling as I should and one of the reasons I’m writing this is to help shed some light on a dad’s psyche for all the spouses out there.

The Dad Psyche

It’s all about what we view our role to be. We are protectors. It’s our job, our role (and you know how deeply we hold our role), to protect the family unit. When we have daughters, this instinct reaches heights that are difficult for us to convey. We simply aren’t built to feel such strong emotions. We kinda short circuit and that’s what we act like idiots when it happens. Our brains shut down!

Since the day my daughter was born and she grabbed a hold of my pinky with her little tiny fingers, my soul made a promise to do everything to protect her. The same holds true for my son. The difference lies in the fact that I can relate to my son’s childhood. I lived it. This gives dads a sense of comfort and allows us to be more relaxed with them. With our daughters, however, it’s totally different. We didn’t live a female childhood and it’s very difficult for us to relate. This means we are much less willing to take risks with them, just in case. I need to protect, remember?

When milestones such as a first date happen with daughters, a dad experiences a feeling of happiness just like you moms do. It’s a right of passage that we all go through. Your daughter’s happy and so are you. This is good.

Letting Go

At the same time, moms, please understand what we dads do. In a very real way, we entrust the wellbeing of our daughters to someone else. Our soul aches because we see that our role as protector is slowly, irreversibly, coming to an end. There will come a time when we will need to let go and watch her fly and live the life of a woman. A life we’ve not experience and can’t really relate to. It’s hard. It’s painful. BUT, we do it.

I gave the date my hand and said, “Hi, how are you doing?”. My hand was firm and resolute. My eyes conveyed strength. I fought back an urge to lay down the law with the young man. It’s a fantasy all dads have, ladies. You don’t have to understand.

So, Mom, be patient with us dads during these milestones. Accept that you are not feeling what we are feeling and we simply can’t articulate it. We’ll come around and it’s be OK. Our idiotic behavior is rooted in a deep love for our daughters and an ions old instinct to protect.

But enough about me and dads. This day is all about my daughter.

I’m so happy for your my dearest daughter.

Love always,

Your Dad

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Find more great how to be a dad and live a mindful and meaningful life articles at A Dad's Life - A web column for fathers on current events, technology and earning the title of #1 dad!

Boys, I dedicate Sundays to family so no long posts today. However, here’s a quick thought to end your weekend.

Like many things in life, how to be Dad is tough. It’s a struggle but you keep at it. Inch by inch. Until you get better or you die. Inch by inch. That’s what you focus on. How can I be a better dad today? Focus on what you are doing today. That’s your inch. Over time, the inches add up and your family (and you) are better for it.

Now go. Focus on that inch.

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I believe that a dad is made by the grace of God, the love of his wife, and his commitment to being one. I understand we don’t always have the luck of staying together with the mother of our children but your commitment to being a dad, an intentional dad, is completely within our control.

I love to showcase dads that are living the “intentional dad” life and it shows. Busy Dad is one of those dads. He’s an inspiration. Read his stuff and you can see it come through.

I could see his soul as it came through loud and clear in his post for his son on his tenth birthday. It brought a tear to my eye as I read and saw the years go by with his son. Soon, his son will be a man and “carving his own path”. All our children will. What they will carry is what we choose to give them. Not the material things. They will carry the intangibles. Those things that only spending time with them can give them.

It’s obvious that Busy Dad understands this and is busy doing it rather than wishing he had time to. This is the side of dads that many people miss. A side that, unfortunately, is buried deep with too many fathers. That needs to change. People like Busy Dad are making it happen.

Keep up the good work, BD!

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“You heard it here first! Yes, 4 fantastically awesome techniques to get you a gazillion readers and piles of passive income cash! All you need to do are these 4 secret things that only I know about and have figured out either by accident or because I’m unusually brilliant. But guess what, you are so lucky, I’m going to tell you all about it, right now (probably way at the bottom of the page so that I can get a bunch of killer keywords into the top of the page so Google will send me more of yous).”

Sorry about all that. Was it as painful for you to read as it was for me to write?

I hope you got my point. While we were all trying to improve our writing and hoping for some readers who liked it, the Internet became polluted with “how to blog and make money” sites. While I truly believe blogging and earning from it is a wonderful goal, don’t, for the love of God, get sucked into being a lemming for these sites. Be authentic. Be you! That is what will drive you to be passionate and it is that passion that will lead, ultimately, to an online presence that matters!

I have been doing a lot of thinking and research while I improve this web column for myself and my current and future readers. With everything I’ve learned recently and over the 7 years I’ve been blogging, I do have some advice for you if you have a blog and want it to matter. Ironically, I will organize my advice into a list of 4 simple items. I’ll let you decide if they are fantastically awesome and uber powerful killer and whatever else are the in vogue marketing words these days.

1. Write posts from your soul and that convey your passion for whatever it is you’re writing about. Each post should satisfy your need to write it and give value (matter) to those that share your passion. Long or short, frequent or infrequent. It’s irrelevant. Does the post matter to you and to those that share your passion? If the answer is yes, then hit the publish button.
2. Work on your site so that it loads quickly. We are all impatient online. If your site takes too long to load, it doesn’t matter if you followed rule number 1 above. There are many free tutorials out there about how to improve load speed so go do some research for your blogging platform. If you are using WordPress, check into W3 Total Cache plugin. Test your site with YSLOW and Google Page Speed.
3. Work on your site’s search engine optimization (SEO). Advice 1 and 2 don’t mean anything if people don’t know you exist. As Google and other search engines use algorithms to identify relevant sites, it’s important for your site to facilitate being found. There is a right way too SEO and a wrong way (grey hat techniques and otherwise trying to game the system and not providing value to readers). Don’t use the wrong way. It’s bad karma and sooner or later you will regret it.
4. Be an authentic blogger. Please don’t fall into the trap that your posts need to follow a formula to be eye catching, bite sized, etc. That takes every ounce of creativity out of you and your blog will become one more meaningless, shallow site that gets glossed over by people who share your passion. Don’t do that to yourself or the world. We need your brilliance.

Join me in starting a movement towards authentic blogging. We will all be better for it.

P.S. Sadly, I searched for authentic blogging when thinking through this post. Wouldn’t you know it, someone has even taken the concept of authentic blogging and posted it using one of the formulas! Really?Ugh!

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Seth Godin is always on point for me.

An alternative is to be happy wherever you are, with whatever you’ve got, but alway hungry for the thrill of creating art, of being missed if you’re gone and most of all, doing important work.

Focusing on the meaningful aspects of your life is something I am thinking about more and more about. Midlife crisis or just getting wiser?

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1. To Find Happiness, Forget About Passion

Find more great how to be a dad and live a mindful and meaningful life articles at A Dad's Life - A web column for fathers on current events, technology and earning the title of #1 dad!

April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day. Every parent needs to know about autism. 1 in 88 kids have autism. It’s time to stop it.

You may also enjoy:

1. CNN reports on Autism
2. Carry your candle and light the world– why I write this blog
3. I believe that all people are essentially good…

Find more great how to be a dad and live a mindful and meaningful life articles at A Dad's Life - A web column for fathers on current events, technology and earning the title of #1 dad!

From a certain point of view, parenting is about sacrificing for your kids. We don’t ask for anything back other than for them to be good people and live a good life. Occasionally, you do get some feedback as your kids grow that says, “Job well done.” This is one of those times.

I couldn’t be any prouder of my daughter and wife (she does most of the sacrificing, I must admit) for all the hard work they’ve put towards my daughter’s studies.  We just got this in the mail:

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Find more great how to be a dad and live a mindful and meaningful life articles at A Dad's Life - A web column for fathers on current events, technology and earning the title of #1 dad!

When you’re trying to get your head on straight, David Allen’s book, Making It All Work, is invaluable. Here’s a great quote:

Making It All Work is about the work you have to do to know the work you have to do when the work you have to do doesn’t tell you the work you have to do.

Priceless!

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Find more great how to be a dad and live a mindful and meaningful life articles at A Dad's Life - A web column for fathers on current events, technology and earning the title of #1 dad!