The advice I would give to my kids if they asked today

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The author reflects on the advice they would give to their children based on life experience. They emphasize the importance of clarity in identifying one's desires as a foundation for satisfaction. The advice is threefold: firstly, focus on clarifying what you want; secondly, channel that focus into efforts to achieve those desires; and finally, create a framework of spacetime around those goals, acknowledging the dimensions of space and time as integral to existence. The author sees motion, encompassing spacetime, as crucial to ordering life, and stresses the continual need to recenter on personal desires for a fulfilling life. The retrospective perspective of the author, aged 42, informs this guidance, recognizing the ongoing nature of this process. The author acknowledges imperfection but expresses hope for each generation to improve upon the last. The ultimate wish is for the success, fulfillment, and flourishing of not only their children but all.

The advice I would give to my kids if they asked today


I was recently thinking about what I would tell my kids if they asked for advice based on my life experience.  It’s always an imperfect effort to guide our young ones - we must take great care to balance what certainty they have of their gifts, skills, and interests with the open-ended wonder of possibility that expands before them.  Losing this delicate balance is psychically destructive, either in the direction of aimlessness or over-control.  One of our kids seems quite clear on his path, the other a bit less so.  Regardless, I would give the same advice to both.  It is in 3 parts:


  1. Focus on what you want

  2. Focus on what you want

  3. Make spacetime for what you want


Points 1 and 2 look the same, but it’s a play on words.


We must first focus on what we want, in the sense of having a want in the first place.  Most problems and dissatisfaction experienced by people come from not knowing what they want.  The first step is to clarify what you want.


Next we must focus on getting what we want.  The confidence and persistence that comes from discerning what we want will inevitably translate into STRATEGIES that structure our ACTIONS.


And finally we must put spacetime around what we want.  Existence is one of spacetime.  I don’t know why, but these are the dimensions in which we live and move and have our being.  The 3 dimensions of space force us to allocate our physical resources, and the 4th of time our temporal ones.  I often notice that we use the metaphor of “space” to refer to time as well.  Sometimes when we talk about “making space” we actually mean clearing time in our schedules.  And at other times it refers to the safety of the energy we put around conversations (the concept of a “safe space” - this is yet another sense of space, not related to spacetime).


I sometimes refer to the Realm of MOTION as the foundation of my metaphysical system.  It’s a convenient way to refer to the whole of spacetime - motion necessitates both space and time in and over which to change.  This goes back to the beginning as Aristotle, Aquinas, and Lemaître knew: https://aaronjmarx.com/blog/history-your-story-your-purpose.


Ordering our lives requires perpetual recentering in what we want, and this ultimately shows us how to structure the contents of our personal allotments of spacetime.  It is as simple as this, and all dissatisfaction in my life for which I have ever been personally responsible has been a result of this process breaking down or losing integrity at some point.


This is clearer in retrospect, of course, looking back on the results of my 42 years.  At 12 and 14 my kids have many decades to structure ahead of them, and I am glad to be able to guide them with these lessons from my experience.  Will it be a perfect process for them?  Of course not.  Ours is not a perfect condition.  But each moment, and each generation can improve over the last just a bit, and that’s my barometer for success here.


Here’s to the success, fulfillment, and flourishing of my children, and yours.

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