How to Survive Father's Day when Dad Isn't There

I'm sending you this letter as I promised. It is the letter I mentioned to you over dinner the other day at that Mexican restaurant. Remember our three-hour conversation?-a marathon which I enjoyed very much. To begin, let me make one very important point. I forgot to bring this up, last we spoke at dinner. This is so that from this point onward you'll better understand why I say the things that I do and why I think the way I do.

I am a firm believer that we - meaning you and I as part of the male species, especially in America - are part of a rapidly deteriorating social class. Men in America have forgotten how to be strong, how to be leaders, how to tell the truth, and how to live respectfully.

We have given up our spirit in favor of pleasing everyone and everything else that television and magazines, and popular culture say is appropriate.

We are lost, clueless to who we really are anymore, and we get caught up in the nonsense of what other lost people are trying to tell us we should be. This is why we have so many divorces, so many over-medicated people, so many different kinds of addiction and so many bad fathers and leaders. And the sad part is we call this normal.

Not to get all spiritual on you (but you can handle it for a minute) - there is a passage in the Bible that talks about the sins of the father passing onto the son.Never has this statement been truer than it is today. Fathers have long forgotten (and this includes my own father) to teach their sons how to be men. Instead they've passed on dysfunction after dysfunction and frustration after frustration. Supplying a child with the funds to obtain a college degree does not educate him on becoming a man. Neither does providing for his basic needs, or providing a lifestyle of comfort. None of that equates to "manhood." Yet, nowadays, in this present system of living and learning, this is too often where the road stops.

So then what do we do? Let's start with this simple fact: If you're going to teach someone how to be a man, you must first be the man. If you aren't (your life will indicate this) then everything you try to teach will ultimately be worthless and full of holes once it's tested by life. Others might also tell you that to "be the man, you have to beat the man." It's a sports mentality that actually holds a lot of significance if you consider "The Man" to be yourself. To create, sometimes you have to un-do. You have to conquer certain negative aspects of yourself that you have picked up over time. You have to be willing to look back. When I judge a man (and yes - I do indeed judge, because we all do if you're going to be truthful), I use three simple factors to size him up.

Factor One: Does he have a relationship with God?Now that might sound prejudiced, but to me if a man has a relationship with God then he has a life of meaning as opposed to a life of just guessing and hoping that he's got his act together. He does not wait till his deathbed. Instead he lives a life which already has purpose, and when death comes it cannot shame him. In addition, a relationship with God causes a man to willfully account for his actions.

Factor Two: Does he have a loving and nurturing relationship with his wife?Any man can say anything he wants about himself. However, if he can't steer his own ship at home it tells me a lot about his top priorities.

I am not talking about life's struggles or general difficulties. I'm talking about priorities and constancy. Simply put, I never respect a man who does not respect his wife-never. Don't misunderstand my blunt statement about respect. I do not mean that I am intentionally disrespectful toward him or shun him, but I do mean that I see this person as foundationally flawed, and thus questionable in terms of leadership, advice, and partnership. Any man who claims to be responsible, yet does not love and protect his wife, is ultimately a liar and his life is one entire lie waiting to be exposed.

Factor Three: Does he put the needs of his children above his own?Again, he might claim he has thought of his children first, but study the evidence. How is the relationship between father and child?

Too many fathers believe that if they simply provide a roof over the kid's head, and food on the table, they've done their job. But those things are just basic human needs. These are not the needs of a developing child who is trying to learn how to move through this life and develop vision.

If a father is doing his job there is both discipline and intimacy in the relationship. His children feel safe and secure around him, and have a healthy habit of turning to him for coaching and leadership. All of this is a pattern of order. If you truly place your children first, then you already have placed your wife first, and the rest flows from there. I've known many men who think they can do one without the other. But I've never once seen it work.

Nephew, being a man is 100% founded in the heart.
Your heart will decide for you what does and does not have value.
Your heart will decide if and when you will risk.
Your heart will stand you up on your feet, or if needed, bring you to your knees.
But the heart needs to be taught, fed, and conditioned for quality.

Some of these things you can teach and pass on but it is up to the receiver (you) to willfully reach out and take a hold of. Let them mold you, Nephew, if you are able to recognize value in them.

Nonetheless, if you've lived without these things, and no one is willing to stand in the gap to hand them off to you, then what can you do? You cannot learn what you do not recognize, and you do not recognize what has never been exposed to you. But it's never too late to reconsider the path that our lives are taking. I've had to do it many times, and now here you are, as a young man, doing very much the same thing.

So as I present some things for you to consider, it is my hope that they might one day have value for you. And if so, then you can take them with you everywhere you go. They are the things that make up who I am as your Uncle, as a husband, and even as a son myself. And most of these things, I have learned the hard way, without my father's guidance to help me.

Uncles's 14 Life Tools:

1. Humility: NUMERO UNO. Humility is the key to personal strength and the doorway to wisdom for any man at any age and at any stage of his life. Humility is often falsely described as weakness. True humility, quite simply, is being able to take an honest evaluation of oneself in order to see where we fall short or need improvement in any area of our lives. It allows us to see our weaknesses and then draft a plan of action to strengthen those weaknesses. If you can humble yourself you can learn to overcome anything. And because you have nothing to hide the enemy has nothing to expose.

2. Character: Character is quite simply the core of who you are. You can build either good character or bad character. One leads to defeat, and one empowers you. A man who is known for having good character has many friends, confidants, and solid relationships. People will quickly rally around a man of character when he needs help, because they believe in him. A man with good character is a strong man who is not easily defeated. A man with good character can overcome, can grow, can help others in difficult times and is sought out by others for wisdom and friendship. The best leaders - either in the family, or at work, or in any place you could think of - all exhibit good character. They are known for being a "certain type of man."

People count on him. People gladly extend respect to him, because this is a man who never has to demand respect. It is the way that he lives, his daily life, that naturally causes it to flow toward him. Think about what I'm telling you here....what are you constantly fighting for? And why must you fight?

3. Strength: In this world the idea of strength has been manipulated and twisted into a lie, and we have very few solid examples of true strength. Anger is not strength. Pride is not strength. Wealth is not strength. Knowledge is not strength. Favorable public opinion is not strength. Strength is believing in who you are foundationally to the point that no one can make you waiver or yield under pressure. If you do not know and understand your identity you have no true strength. It's one thing to know who you are but it's quite another to truly believein who you are. Strength is a quiet thing. It vibrates outward from the inside.

4. Wisdom: Wisdomis the ability to take any and all knowledge and put it to use effectively during real life situations. It is founded on humility, and displayed through love. You can't manufacture wisdom or buy it. You have to live a life of purpose to achieve it. You have to go after it and hunger for it. If you have wisdom, you can't help but to have a good life, because you make good choices. Every day I'm seeking it, often in others who have already acquired it, or in that little black book you've seen me reading.

5. Mentorship: all men (those with wisdom) need to both be mentored and provide mentorship to others in all areas of their lives. This is one of the ways you live a life with purpose, and ensure that your life is not a wasted life. Despite what we all seem to know and have experienced there is always someone who has experienced more. Mentorship is partnership. It is a team approach to life. In the Bible there is a quote that speaks of this partnership between people, and it exemplifies it in a simple but profound way: "A cord of three strands is not easily broken" This is true. With a team life approach, mentorship provides wisdom, and strength. It allows you to enjoy the ability to help others, and to guide, and to problem solve. There are people I look up to (it includes someone who is younger than me) who mentor me. Some are by my side, in the same place I am in life, which gives us the chance to mentor one another and push each other to be better. And I have people under me, who still have much to learn.

All of these relationships I have going at the same time. It keeps my head clear, keeps me out of trouble, and makes me a better man. Together we pool our talents, our strengths, and our knowledge. Together, we cannot be easily broken.

6. Recognizing the Fear Factor: All men fear, only a few admit it, and sadly most men are under fear's control. Usually the loudest men fear the most. Fear is the enemy. It keeps you from humbling yourself. It keeps you from growing and learning. It keeps you from seeing things in perspective because it makes you selfish. Being selfish, thinking only of yourself, means you are controlled by fear because you cannot relinquish control - and yet you are already under control - the control of fear, therefore you are really just a puppet and not really a man at all. Fear makes fools of all men who allow it to dominate their thoughts and actions. Fear exposes all of your weaknesses and strangles all of your strengths. Though it's perfectly normal to feel fear, it needs to be mastered. Will you free yourself from it? That's the question all men must face, but very few really will. As we grow older, it becomes much harder to learn this.

7. Embracing Risk: You cannot push yourself to grow without risk. You cannot face fear nor defeat it without risk. You cannot be sure of yourself and your abilities without risk. And without risk you cannot impact your world and the lives of others. It is risk that allows you to love, to forgive, to be humble, to experience change, to be empowered, and to learn. If your life is constantly safe, then you are constantly dormant. You just sit there so you won't get hurt but you also do not grow.
Years go by and you find yourself stuck in the exact same rut. Risk does cost, and it does indeed involve pain. Yet it is also the pathway to true manhood. Remember too that living in constant drama and turmoil, is also not risk. I used to think that it was, but I was wrong. Anyone can try to take on the whole world, and anger is easy to muster up. But can you stop for a moment and risk looking inward at yourself?

8. Changing Your World: There are only two types of men on this planet Nephew, just two: The powerful and the powerless. The powerful make things happen. The powerless only do what they are told, do what is expected of them, and might not even realize it. If you died tomorrow what do you want people to say about you? That you were good at your job, you had that beautiful Harley? Or would you rather they say you were a good man?

Do your construction skills summarize your life? What if you were able to experience the privilege of helping somebody change his or her life for the better? What if one of the bricks that were laid in that person's life bore your name for eternity on it? Would that matter to you? Everyday, all around you, there are countless opportunities to change your world, as long as you have breath in your lungs you can make a difference, you can make an impact, you can have a voice.

9. Use Your Voice: Nobody else in the world has a voice just like yours. Take advantage of your uniqueness. Every trial you will ever face is a great opportunity to change your world if you allow yourself the opportunity to see it that way. Remember that there are things in this life that only you Nephew - ONLY you - can do. It would be a shame to waste that.

10. Respecting Spirituality: I'm not going to try to convert you Nephew, I never have and never will, but I'll gladly answer any questions you might have if you ever feel so led to ask them, as you already know that my house is a safe-house. However, I'll also never apologize or be embarrassed of my faith, as this is not a house of fear or shame. This faith, this religious extremism, you have previously described is the core of who I am, it is the reason I am what I am, and it is everything that holds me together. From my faith I think, reason, problem solve, handle relationships, handle my job, write my music, comb my hair and put on my underwear.

11. Get Real and Get to the Nitty Gritty: Here's a little secret that far too many people do not understand. Life is not as complicated as we often try to make it seem. When I have a discussion I have a tendency to cut to the chase and get right to the core of things. I do that because everything else is just a waste of time and I don't have a lot of time on my hands to throw away.

As you struggle to find your way, try to remember what motivates a person to do what he or she does. What's driving the behavior? If you can learn this you can avoid a lot of heartache and be able to quickly problem solve and not be dominated by the conflict of constantly questioning yourself. It will cause you to develop the thinking side of who you are as opposed to being a slave to the reactive part of yourself. When I was your age I was 100% reactive. It caused me many problems. And while I still battle, it's gotten much easier once I learned to strip things down.

12. Sacrifice: we all from time to time, have to let something go in order to make way for something to come in. If it was convenient or pain-free, then we would not call it a sacrifice. You will find that fate has a funny way of returning to you what you previously let go, at just the right time. And sacrificing something precious to you for somebody else can often be the perfect thing to take the quality of your life to the next level. What we are able to walk away from can and will define what we are really made of. What we might be called upon to sacrifice is our comfort.

13. How to Be a Man: Simply summarize all of the above that I just wrote out and you've pretty got it. Nephew, don't forget what I told you before. These are the years that shape your future. It's time to grow up. It's time to go into the outside world and make the sacrifices necessary to gain the real-world experience you need, on your own.

My father never once spoke to me about legacy. But this is the truth my friend, all of us who are alive on this big blue planet are at this very moment creating our legacy.

Many things will continue to happen long after you are gone, based specifically on what you did or did not do with this life of yours. All of us are tempted to be selfish and just live for ourselves. Foolishly we deny the fact that what we do affects other people-often for a lifetime. We teach others the many lessons of life just by being who we are. People watch us and listen to our words. Therefore we are creating something all the time. We need to be aware of this and it needs to matter to us.

14. Words, Words, Words, Words and Words: Here is another simple yet powerful truth: you are defined as a person by the very words you speak, and how you speak them. Think on that a while. Do you speak words of fear (worry), or words of faith (hope)? Does what you say empower people, or tear them down? Do people surround you, or do your words cause people to desert you?

How do you speak about yourself? Do you speak power into your own life by being humble and positive? Or do you shame yourself by speaking with false bravado, with your chest puffed out in anger, trying to control things around you? Your words give you away.
I believe that the energy of what you speak goes on forever and continues to grow and multiply and manifest. People have changed the way I think just by the way they spoke to me. And I have done that to others, and so have you.

That's what made a man like Jesus so powerful. He ripped apart a thousand plus years of dead-end thinking, and liberated the masses just by the things he spoke and by the types of questions he asked. And he did all of this in only three short years. He had no Army. He had no money. He had no political muscle. He didn't even have a home of his own or a bed of his own to sleep in, he had nothing. But he was a powerful presence because he deeply understood the power of words. It was exactly those words (words that broke the curse of my trying to win my own father's approval), which changed the way my entire mind worked and led me to be a man who could stand up on his own two feet, and be a person of value. Think about ALL of the people who have been, or are even now, a major influence in your life. How do they speak, or have spoken. You will find the answers right there. Trust me, its very eye opening.

Well there you go; Uncle's easy to follow recipe for success. It only took me 38 years to gather these ingredients and I'm sure there are still many more that I need to gather to make my life sweeter. Strange as it may seem I can honestly tell you that I have no greater value in life than these things that I have just written down. It is my wealth and no man has the power to take it from me because they are a part of me. So for now Nephew, as promised, I hand them over to you to consider embracing. If we were in a foot race together then think of this as my handing the baton off to you and telling you that this is your life now .... run swiftly... and run well. I know you can do it.

Love,
Uncle

Note: This letter was written by S. Urenda to his nephew. It was edited (and re-edited) by Debby Alten and printed with permission from Mr. Urenda.