Kids in general are very fascinating, from the moment they are born they rely completely on you and as they grow, then become less and less dependent on you.  One of the other things they become is wiser with their age.  As a parent, you think that while your children are still young, they are the ones doing the learning, and you are doing the one teaching.  After all, it is your job as a parent to guide and teach your children, so they grow up to be respectable members of society.  However, they are not always the pupil and you the teacher, there are times that they can teach us a thing or two.

For all that parents do for their children, there are times that they are wise beyond their years and wind up teaching up a thing or two.  As we were driving home this evening from a family gathering and the kids were all strapped into their seats watching Shrek, my one daughter said something very simple, but very thoughtful.  See, my other daughter was making funny faces at our youngest one, trying to keep her awake, but she was being loud and you could barely hear the movie.  Not such a big deal, after all we wanted them to keep the little one awake until we got home, but my daughter had asked for us to turn the sound up, so that my wife could here the song that was being played in the movie.  She said, Mommy, you really like this song.

It was at that moment that I realized two things.  One how absolutely selfless and extremely thoughtful that was of my daughter to ask for the sound to be turned up so my wife could hear the song that she liked so much.  My daughter taught me a little lesson of selflessness.  I sometimes get so wrapped up in things that I can forget about others, but not her, and she reminded me of that trait that is very important.  The second thing I realized is that we have not done such a bad job after all raising our children.  It is moments like these are little gifts to remind us how important our job is as parents, and that there is always room to learn something more.

Life is a juggling act, it is a constant struggle to keep all the balls in the air.  There are times where you may feel like dropping one to keep the others going, and there are times where you may feel like dropping them all and start the juggling act over.  I have been going full steam for quite some time now, with work, raising 4 kids and getting my own start up off the ground, (for those that were not aware about this, there will be more details forthcoming shortly, I promise) that I have not even realized that I have so many balls in the air.

Magically (well that is what I will attribute it to for now), I have not dropped any of the balls (at least that I am aware of), but I have not really taken a step back to realize all that I had going on.  It was not until recently that an acquaintance of mine spelled it out for me, she said: “How horrible is it trying to do a start up and a full time job (with a few kids) at the same time?”.  At that moment, I realized that I was performing a very delicate juggling act, but I did not think of it as horrible, these were all things that are very important to me, and I want to be doing them all.  There are a lot of other things that I want to do, but none of them are as important as what I am currently doing.

The juggling act that you perform goes through phases, sometimes you swap some of the balls you are juggling out with new ones, but nonetheless the juggling act goes on.  That is what life is all about after all, isn’t it?  If you are not able to do the things that are important to you, then perhaps you are juggling the wrong things.  Life is short, you get one shot at it (at least that is what I think, but I am not an expert in the field or reincarnations), so instead of spending your time focusing your efforts on doing things that you may not want to do, drop those things and pick up the things that you want to be doing.  Obviously, there is some give and take in all of this, but bottom line is you should be focusing on those things that are important to you, and keep those balls in the air.

For me, I am juggling all the things that are important to me right now.  I am not sure that I could take on much more, but will and determination are interesting drivers, and can lead to unexpected results.

It seems as our offline world becomes less and less personal (people looking away from you when you pass them in the hall, the decline of bank tellers, automated phone systems, the list goes on and on), actually our online world seems to be coming more and more personal (more and more blogs, people connecting via various social networks, people referring and sharing content to one another).  Why is it then that as our online world becomes more and more personal, the most personal aspect of one’s life seems to be missing, that is being who they are in the real world online.   Why is it that people feel the need to create these alternative identities online when they have a perfectly good identity already, themselves.

I read two blog posts  today, and it reminded me of what it meant to be real, to be yourself, to share your life experiences with the rest of the world and to give them a glimpse into your life.  The first blog post was by my friend Micah, who is a real character.  It is exactly that why I like him so much.  He is not afraid to put it all out there, to talk about subjects that some may find uncomfortable (and I am sure even he at times finds it hard to talk about them), but it is the fact that he is being “real” that is so important.  He is being himself, sharing his life experiences with his friends, in return it helps hm to cope with the situations that he is blogging about, but at the end of the day, it is about who he is, the “real” Micah.  That takes a lot of courage and I respect him for that.  In fact, I admire the fact that he is willing to be himself online as he is offline.

The second post was by a co-worker of mine, Melanie.   Melanie does a very good job as well about being “real” online as she is offline.  Even though she is on the West Coast and I on the East Coast, I still know that when I read her blog posts, that she is being herself.  She reminds me of the importance of being a good parent, a good citizen and a good human being.  She is not afraid to speak her mind, and for those that read her blog, they know who she is, and know that she is no different offline.

I have and always will be the same online as I am off, and I will always be able to be found as myself, no matter what the social network, social utility, <insert social buzz word here> thing is, I am who I am.  So as we become more personal online, I only hope that the final frontier of being personal is conquered and we can all just be ourselves.