best self

I had to attend a mandatory mindset training session yesterday for my large corporate employer. They do that every now and then.

Being an introvert, I often find them somewhat painful. But, also being an hourly employee, it's a part of a day that I get paid to not do my regular work. So, that makes it a wash.

Maybe I was just having a bad day, but I found this one particularly painful. It was about our company's new leadership principles and something about how everyone in the company is a leader...

Meh... I wasn't feeling it. But, blogger that I am, there was a takeaway.

The question was asked:  "When are you your best self?"

The intent was to tie that best self (whether it occurred on or off the job) back to our role within the company. It was an open-ended question without parameters, but most folks (at least the ones who publicly shared their answers) were going with some type of performance/achievement/career-based answer.

I'm often not wired that way, though. Although I take my job seriously, real life is what happens outside of work. I work to live, not live to work.

I had never really pondered the question, "When are you your best self?"  It didn't surprise me, though, that my answer had nothing to do with work. It also didn't surprise me that my takeaway from the session had little to do with work, or that I spent the majority of the remainder of the session pondering this potential blog post.

The answer I came up with is that I think I'm my best self when I am just hanging out with my youngest son, Benny.  Not every time I'm hanging out with him, mind you.  No, he can try my patience and bring out my not-so-best self, at times... many times!  But, at this stage in my life, the times I see myself my best self are the moments when I let myself be drawn into his world.  Because of Ben's disabilities, he still has innocence and imagination beyond many six year-olds.  When my world and his merge in a way that allows us both to leave reality behind for a period of time and just enjoy each other, he brings out my best self!  It is in those moments that I feel like a good Dad.  It is in those moments when I realize the blessings of parenting a child with intellectual and other disabilities.  It is in those moments when he makes me feel like I'm doing something right. 

No, I don't think Benny really realizes that his six year-old self has a gift to make people happy.  But, he does.  And, when being with him makes the world's pressures melt away and his happiness rubs off in a way that brings out patience, compassion, empathy, imagination... yep, there it is... best self!

best self-ie!