JULY 2022

How Can You Change The World If You're Too Busy Having Kids?

With just two months away from having a baby in the home, how the heck am I going to do anything other than work a 9-5 for the rest of my life?

Nothing has taken over my life more than the How To Gather Israel project, a video mini-series I'm directing to help Church of Jesus Christ missionaries learn how to spread positive media online. It's fulfilling, it's exciting. There is a sense of urgency about the work. The more I read on the subject the more I believe that we need to get this information out. Individuals need to know how to better spread positive messages online, and it's my turn to teach them! However, with a baby on the way, it's hard not to feel like there is a massive timer counting down above my head. How am I ever going to have the time to do something incredible like this in the future?

We all say Family is priority number one, it's the answer we're supposed to say. However, for the first time in my life, I am close enough to having a child to ask myself whether or not I actually believe in that statement. That's a dangerous thought to have, but it's one you have to address to make a real personal decision on the matter.

I'm an ambitious dude, so ambitious that I probably shouldn't have taken on this HTGI project 2 months before having a kid and going back to school. But all of 52 Weeks has been about learning how best to spread positive media online and change the world. And this personal call-to-action has been an irresistible pull for the past 4-5 years of my life.

Let's take things back a few weeks back before I started the How To Gather Israel project. I was sitting in my front room with two close friends. Two people I empathize well with because of their similar ambitions to be great individuals, parents, and leaders. People who GET me when it comes to that desire to change the world.

I was excited to share with them this huge project idea that I had come up with, How To Gather Israel. I enthusiastically discussed the ins and outs of the project with two people who's opinion I respected. The conversation gradually led us to discuss how much more I want to do with media over the course of a lifetime. I bore my soul a bit and really let myself gush over how much I love what I'm learning currently with my media projects.

However I was caught completely off guard when one of my ambitious friends told me to "Have a kid first, THEN check back in with your ambitions. You will probably be completely different. Ambitions are cool, but I think you'll be surprised how much a kid will change your priorities."

Not the answer I expected from someone who is just as ambitious as I am.

Internally, I turned my nose up at this and thought "Um even with a kid, I am still going to want to change the world through positive media!" What, did he think I was going to be a bad father or something because of my ambitious draw to change the world?!

So I stewed. I let that bad-boy marinate in my brain for a good week or so. And to be completely honest, I still think that I am going to be ambitious after having a kid.

However, I know myself. I want so badly to improve myself and find fulfillment in this life that I will forever gravitate towards the things that help me do just that. Ambitious media projects that push me to become a more capable and intelligent man are definitely on that path to fulfillment, but my insides know that my ambitious projects are only one small piece to the larger fulfillment puzzle.

A week or two after my friends had bamboozled my brain with a left-field response, Chantelle was out of town with her dance studio. I had exactly 72 hours to spend getting all sorts of work done, and I put in WORK man. However the second Chantelle walked in that door with her little baby bump I immediately noticed a shift from a low buzz of accomplishment I was getting through hard work to a happiness that just took over my entire body. COMPLETELY happy. Can't stop laughing or form proper words happy.

I put away work for a couple days so that I could spend time with Chantelle, and it all fell into place for me.

I am going to change the world through my son/future kids, and anything I do to change the world through positive media is just a bonus. Because family holds a more powerful key to happiness (and positive change in the world, for that matter!) than any amount of career driven success.

That 1 second clip @2:00 of the dude banging out pull-ups on the street corner has stuck with me for years. He is my inspiration for 90% of the pull-ups I have ever done.

Common - Be

Waiting for the Lord to rise

I look into my daughter's eyes

And realize that I'ma learn through her

The Messiah, might even return through her

If I'ma do it, I gotta change the world through her.

I first heard this song back in college while working at a bowling alley. It's funny, I think I knew these lines held some deep wisdom far before I could really articulate my understanding of the subject matter.

Having kids doesn't take away your ability to change the world, having kids enables the personal growth required for you to change the world. My father-in-law says that each generation should be better than the last, and I know that if I teach my kids right, they are going to change the world even more than I will.