The nice old owl sat on the oak, the more it saw the less it spoke, the less it spoke, the more it heard.
Why can't we be like that owl?
There's a reason why we have two ears & just one mouth.
Listen more than you speak.
I have friends who are older and very fit because of their lifestyle. They don't drink or smoke and exercise daily. They also have the most unfit kids who don't follow their example. This has always worried me as I am raising young children. I have also seen families with hard-working and wealthy parents who raise the laziest and most entitled children.
We always want our children to do better than us, but when and where does this go wrong for most people? I think it comes from the time and attention we personally give our kids and the lapses we allow.
My wife and I are early risers. I have a particular sleep problem I am still trying to solve, but my kids can sleep all day on vacation if you let them. A friend with an older son who had just graduated and was back home, jobless, used to tell me how alarmed he was that the son would go out all night, come back early in the morning, and sleep all day.
I told him then that if he didn't force him to change that habit, he would remain jobless and stay with his parents longer. They eventually forced him to change, and he moved out. He has a job now and struggles a lot. His parents are concerned that he isn't thriving. He is now almost 30, and I think about this all the time. At 25, I was a beast and had started many businesses.
While we want our kids and young adults to experience life on their own terms in a world vastly different from the one we grew up in, we can't help but notice that others whose children were more disciplined are thriving better. One indicator I have seen that correlates with success in younger people is fitness.
A friend’s son started going to the gym regularly, and he even inspired his cousins to do so. I checked on LinkedIn recently, and he is doing exceptionally well as a lawyer and investment banker without any family connections or assistance. His younger cousins, who are looking up to him, are following in his footsteps. I decided to get my kids to spend more time with him.
The role models our children need may be closer to their age than ours. It is why we need to amplify the lifestyles of young, disciplined, and successful people more. Not every person will make it through creative pursuits. I stress this to my kids all the time. There are billions of YouTube channels, but there is only one MrBeast or IShowSpeed.
Social media is highlighting more unrealistic role models than the most useful ones. My daughter is likely one of the most intelligent young children that I know, but because she doesn't want to be seen as a nerd, she is adapting to popular culture to blend in, in a way that scares me. This sometimes affects the way she learns. While I don't want to restrict her now from experiencing the world, I have realized that she needs different role models.
My son’s role models are nerds, and he nerds out in ways that surprise me and it is also worrying. We can be watching a movie, and he goes online to research it and summarise the plot so he can leave to code. He is not experiencing life enough outside the internet.
They will either eventually be ok in a world very different from ours or struggle in a world that becomes worse than ours, without the skills to build personal resilience and strong social skills.
I recently had a personal experience that made me realize I was fortunate to have left home early and to have different role models from my parents. Having a broken home led to different outcomes for my siblings and me, but the fact that I had strong personalities like my mother’s uncle and the uncles I grew up around helped me learn a lot more about life and priorities.
The world is a very complex place, and life is not a bed of roses. While we want the best outcomes for our kids, we have to finally admit that they will learn far more from others than they will ever learn from us. The best thing we can do for them is expose them to the right kind of people early enough, then hope and pray that we didn't misread those people.
@asemota Same exact thoughts since childhood. I was in the village last week and saw someone processing fufu and I just had to raise the topic and the convo around it went on for like an hr. Even vegetables, who freaking decided this and not that leaf is edible?
There are defeats that feel like victories.
And then there are teams that leave a tournament without lifting the trophy, yet somehow walk away with millions of new fans.
Cape Verde is one of them.
As an African and as someone who simply loves football, I am still in awe of what I witnessed.
This was a nation making its World Cup debut.
Cape Verde.
A country many people couldn’t point to on a map a few weeks ago.
Yet they walked into the biggest football stage on earth and refused to fear anyone.
They drew with Spain, the champions of Europe. They drew with Saudi Arabia, one of the top dogs in Asia. They drew with Uruguay, one of the giants of South America.
Then they pushed the defending world champions, Argentina, to the very edge in a match that could have gone either way.
Think about that for a second.
Across the entire tournament, nobody beat Cape Verde in normal time.
Nobody. Not one team.
For a debutant from a nation of just over half a million people, that is extraordinary.
What impressed me wasn’t just their quality. It was their courage.
They never played like a team grateful to be there. They played like a team that believed they belonged there.
Every tackle mattered. Every sprint had purpose. Every goal they conceded was met with another reason to keep believing.
Even in defeat, they never looked defeated.
Football can be cruel.
Sometimes your reward for doing almost everything right is still going home. But long after people forget the scoreline, many of us will remember the team that wore blue, refused to bow to football’s giants, and reminded the world why we love this sport.
Cape Verde, thank you.
You didn’t just represent your country.
You represented every small nation that has ever been told to know its place.
You represented Africa with courage, pride and dignity.
The tournament will continue.
Argentina will move on.
But one thing is certain.
The world knows Cape Verde now.
And I sincerely hope this isn’t the last time we witness this beautiful fire.