Child's Play, The Citizen, June 2008

There Is Hope

Gregory K. Moffatt, Ph.D.

I watched graduates walk across the stage and receive their college diplomas this past month as another academic year drew to a close. This was the 24th graduating class I've launched as a college faculty member. Each year as I see joy and hopefulness in their faces, I know they have the world ahead of them. They have dreams of jobs, marriage, and children. It was a quarter century ago when I walked across the stage myself and received my first collegiate degree. Back then my life was ahead of me, but as I near fifty years of age, I realize the majority of my life is now behind me. When we look back over our lives we can't help but ask the question, "What have we become?"

At some point in life most of us believed that we would be the best husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, or the best students or employees. We knew we could change the world and we were certain we would lead fulfilling lives, have meaningful careers that we loved, and most important of all, we wouldn't grow into those grumpy, humorless people that tried their best to make our youth miserable - people like my seventh grade history teacher who said our country was going to hell in a hand basket and thoughtless kids like us were helping ruin what was left of it. (She said she hoped she died before we grew into adults and most of us thought that was a pretty good idea.)

But life doesn't always turn out the way we had hoped. The saddest thing anyone ever said to me was, "I grew up to be the things I always hated." How does this happen? How does a person find himself with twenty or thirty years of a career behind him and then realize he hasn't enjoyed one day of it? How does the joy of a wedding day disintegrate into painful divorce? How do the endless possibilities that we envision at the birth of a child digress to the monotony of doctor visits, sack lunches, and wrestling matches over doing household chores?

Changes happen for a very simple reason. People give up and stop dreaming. They give up on the certainty that they can, indeed change the world. They don't realize that changing the world doesn't necessarily mean fame or fortune. It may simply mean changing the lives of those around you. Like a friend once told me, "Make people happy to see you coming, not happy to see you going."

Our careers can be fulfilling if we have the courage to let go of our fear of the unknown and pursue what we know would make us happy. Our marriages can be better if we don't stop taking long, quiet walks with the ones we love. Our children can be what they want to be as long as we don't stop dreaming with them.

I've done hundreds of parenting seminars and often I see disappointed faces in the crowd. I recognize the people behind these faces. They are the parents who realize they spent too much time at work and not enough time romancing their spouses. They spent too much time worrying about household trivia and too little time rolling on the floor laughing with their children. Now their children are grown or their marriages are stale and they no longer see any hope.

But it is never too late to reach for the marriage, career, or personal goals that you want. You can always start dreaming again. The first step toward being a great spouse or a great parent is to never substitute things for people. One of my heroes was a former director of the FBI. Whenever I went to see him, either at my request or his, he always treated me like he had nothing in the world to do but talk to me. That attitude fostered a very deep friendship between us. I've tried to take this example and apply it to my students, patients, spouses and children. Make these words your mantra and live by them, especially in regard to your spouse and children. "You are never an interruption to me." With this attitude, there is always hope because we will always keep our priorities in front of us.

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