I hope you grow up to be just like you

​Ian had his fifteenth birthday yesterday. Nothing makes a parent reflect more than a kid's birthday.

I found myself thinking, he's growing up to be just like him.

I found myself smiling.

I'm in the sixth decade of my life. I feel like I am finally growing up to be just like me.

I don't want my boys to have to wait that long.

That's why I don't have dreams for my boys. I don't have any desire that they have a better life than I have had. I really don't have any desires for my boys at all, other than that they grow up to be just like them.

When we have dreams for our kids, it's tempting to make our dreams their dreams. Which makes their dreams largely fueled by pressure and not desire or passion.

Pressure that often has them growing up to be someone other than themselves.

I had a conversation with a friend at lunch yesterday. I was commenting just how different my boys are as teens than I was. She asked if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

I said it's just a thing.

It's tempting to want to measure my kids by who I was or am. It's tempting to measure my kids by who I'd like them to be. It's tempting to imagine the course of their life against the map of some course I have plotted out for them.

It's tempting, but I don't do it.

I don't do it because I want my boys to grow up to be just like them. Not just like me. Not like my desires.

A lot of folks out there in the world are struggling today. I think at the root of many of those struggles is too many people have grown up to be just like someone else. They got so busy living a life looking like someone they were supposed to look like and never stopped to discover who they are.

So happy birthday Ian.

I love you buddy.

And I really love that the you I love looks more and more like you every day.

Keep being you pal