What is your Passion?

Hey all,

Noah had another doozy this weekend - a "Noahism." My son went to a birthday party in a neighborhood with some huge houses. After the party, I took my 11-year-old, my 6-year-old and another 11-year-old boy around to look at the big houses. As we are driving it was a lot of "Wow, that is a big one there," and "Look at that one, it is huge." After about 10 minutes, we started to drive home and Noah said, "Whoa!!! THAT is a big right there." I said, "Yes, Noah that is a big one, but that is something we call... a HOTEL." I laughed all weekend.

Luke, my 11-year-old, is playing tackle football for his school this year on the middle school team. He is in the sixth grade and is playing for a team that consists of 6th, 7th and 8th graders. Luke is 81 pounds. He has a friend that is also in the sixth grade that is 185 pounds. So you can imagine that the range of body styles and sizes are huge.

The coach sent out an email this weekend recognizing this.
He said that he is not going to put our kids in a situation that where could get hurt,and that we should talk to our kids about how committed they are to football because of the possibility of not playing this year. I talked to Luke and he is loving it. He loves practice, he loves hitting, he loves being small. So here we go. The first game is in 9 days. I will let you know how it goes.

Today I want to talk about passion. I was out with an attorney friend of mine on Saturday night. His job consists of "branding" people; he helps people market themselves, so he is always looking for an angle with people. He asked me what my passion was.

I thought about it, and thought about it, and thought some more. And I gave him my most thought out answer, "I don't have one." I go to work at 6am and get home at 5pm. Then I do home stuff. Could be the lawn, could be the pool. Could be homework, could be playing football, could be watching football, but it is mostly stuff around the house or family. And I do this until about 9pm. Then I watch TV for a hour or two before I go to bed. Then I wake up the next day and do it all again.

On Saturdays I run and then just really sit around the house and hang. Sunday is church day. We go to church around 9:15 and after all the hanging out after church and then lunch out, we get home at about 2:30. Then I hang out and usually swim and watch sports.

I am kind of a simple guy. I don't really do much outside of teeth and family. I told him that I guess you could say that my passion is teeth. But that is not what he was looking for. I guess having a passion for your job is so foreign to people.

I look at my life right now, and it is kind of boring. Not boring like I don't have much to do but when I write it down seem so boring. I mean, it's not like my passion is flying, or anything exciting like that. Yeah, flying would be cool. I can join all sorts of flying clubs, buy a plane, and go after work every day for a fly. Then, if I wanted, I could go to places like Sannibel Island for a romantic weekend with the wife, spur of the moment. I could go to Boston to see a RedSox series with the Yankees with my boys. My options would be limitless. Doesn't that sound like what this guy was looking for?

Or something like restoring 1965 Shelby Cobras. Yeah, I could restore my car and go from town to town and enter it into shows (you know the ones on Friday night at Steak-n-Shake) and yell at kids for coming by and putting there grimey hands on the polished paint job. I could ride with the top down on all the back roads near the beach. That sound awesome, doesn't it?

Or travel. Yeah, traveling would be a great passion. The French Riviera, Rome, the wine country in Sonoma, Vienna, London. Yeah, my passion could be travel. That would also be awesome.

So, when I tell him teeth, he looks at me like I have two heads and his smile kind of drops. I can see how it is not very exciting. But I am in the time of my life where all I have is my practice, my house, my kids, my running and church. THAT IS IT. To me that is a lot.

I've got no time to fly, I don't know the first thing about cars, and I have no time (OR MONEY) to travel. It is what it is. I have the tooth gene and sometimes loving teeth is not that exciting to other people. I am in the stage of my life that my wife and kids need me, so that is that. Maybe in 15 years I can have all that other stuff. I can get a motor home and travel all around following NASCAR or something crazy like that. Or I could afford a beach house and spend half of my weeks at the beach. But for now, I have to pick up Luke from football practice, go to the periodontist to pick up some healing caps for a case I have tomorrow, go home and eat with the family, and then I am off to a study club at night. Passion? Yes. Boring? Yes, but passion none the less.

So, sorry dude, but I know loving teeth is not really a brandable commodity. You are going to have to move on to the next guy that loves music or something. Yeah that would be cool to travel around following my favorite band... Maybe later.

Have a great week and I will talk to you on Friday,
john