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Monday March 22, 2010 And that's that. With the coming of March 23, my divorce is now legally finalized. I don't feel any different, the only time I really felt anything substantial regarding said process that was sad regarding the relationship with my ex was our day in court in November. The whole proceeding was virgin territory to me, but after leaving the courthouse I couldn't help but feeling a little sad. It didn't last very long, and it wasn't about what was agreed upon that day, but about the fact that a relationship we both wanted to succeed, failed. In the past I would have written a lot more on a day like today, but I have decided to limit my blogs going forward a majority of the time. If people want to read a ton of my writing, they will have to wait for a book instead. The only thing I want to stress on the day my divorce was finalized, is that if you are unhappy in your current relationship, whether you are male, female, straight, gay, married, married with kids, dating, whatever you can thing of, get out TODAY. Don't wait another day "hoping" that things will get better, and stop lying to yourself. Even if you choose to leave an unhappy situation the moment you finish reading this, it takes time to heal, and time to be happy again. Every person is different, and usually the amount of emotional scars an individual has directly correlates with the amount of time it takes to feel better. Bottom line, the longer you wait to be happy, the longer it is going to TAKE to BE happy. Most adults say how short our lives our on this planet, and how you have to enjoy every moment the best that you can. This couldn't be more true. I know that many people are afraid to leave an unhappy situation because they feel they will be even more unhappy by being alone, or they feel they should stay for their kids, or whatever legit reasons they can come up with. The fact is, happiness comes first from WITHIN. This isn't a mystical side of me speaking, or a motivational speech, it's simply the truth. For anyone that asks me in the future if they should stay in an unhappy relationship "for the kids", the answer is NO 100% of the time. Not 95%, not 90%, not even 50%, but ALL the time. In order for your kids to be happy, YOU have to be happy. To conclude my blog today, I leave you with the Best Man speech that I gave for my friend Chris and his wife Rebecca at their wedding last October. It summarizes better anything else I would want to share with others right now, it's something I worked very hard on after years of reflection, and I hadn't posted on my site before: York/O'Connell Wedding Best Man Speech (10/11/2009) Yes I need something to read off of LOL I am a writer not a public speaker so this helps calm the nerves of being up here. I've known Yorky for 12 years; I can't just call him Chris, so bear with me, either Yorky or Yorky Duck as my daughter affectionately named him when she was around 2 years old. I am an ironic person to be giving this speech given my own personal circumstances but these circumstances make me a perfect candidate for what i will be saying today as I have had a lot of time to think and reflect. As many of you know, I am a stats freak (I got my love of #s from my father, love of cards from my grandfather) so I decided that would be the focus of my speech. For my speech I have 10 pieces of advice for the newlyweds on 3 topics: relationships, parenting, life. Bear with me because this is pretty long and it's all serious. It's not a roast, there's no yuck, no humor, no jokes as the only type of humor I can do (and none too well) is sarcasm which usually comes off as obnoxious. Drama and writing is what I do better than most, so I went the serious route for my speech. RELATIONSHIPS NUMBER 1. Respect & trust are the essential foundation of any successful relationship, not just romantic. A house is only as strong as its foundation and because Chris & Rebecca have a strong foundation, their house will be sturdy and able to withstand time. 2. You can't change people; people can only change THEMSELVES. Compromise in small areas is fine and expected, but you can't (and shouldn't) lose the person that YOU are. Whether it's Yorky with golfing, bowling, VFL with me or Mecca with country music or going out with the girls, the person that you are today is the person the other fell in love with. DON’T lose who YOU are. Make sure that you don't leave your past friends or life behind now that you are married. You CAN love your partner while keeping YOU intact. While you should love yourself, you didn't fall in love WITH yourself, those unique qualities are what make the person you love special. HOWEVER... Relationships take WORK!! NUMBER 3. This is something I never really understood. Things like date nights are something I didn't realize the importance of but now I understand. Planned events and nights out aren't cheesy or cliché things to do. When LIFE becomes overpowering, having SET times planned out where you make time for each other helps keep the glue of the relationship intact. Never stop WORKING at your relationship... the key word is WORK WORK WORK WORK 4. Loyalty is of the utmost importance. ALWAYS be able to count on each other, always be loyal, always be the rock that you can both turn to and count on no matter what... In poker (Yorky you knew I had to throw a poker analogy in there) there is something called variance which is just a way of saying that there will be ups and downs in the game over time. In life variance exists just as much. Even when times are so good you never think about the bad, the bad will come. THIS is the time when you find out who are your real friends, who really loves you, who REALLY cares. The sad reality is that you will find that list of people who really care is very short. It’s easy to be there when times are good, very hard when times are bad. Be there for your partner at these times MORE THAN ANY OTHER. You need to be able to depend on each other at THESE times so when everything turns to crap, you can always count on one another. 5. Communication is essential. Don't let issues fester. Talk things through and come to a conclusion quickly before issues get out of control. Let the words "I'm sorry", "I was wrong", and "you were right" be something you aren't afraid to say. 6. You can NEVER say I love you enough. You can never give enough hugs; you can never give enough affection to remind the other person that they are important to YOU. Make these actions a focal point of reminding the ones you love that you still feel the same way. 6 pieces of advice down, 4 to go, the next topic being... PARENTING I can summarize parenting into 1 single list item. I believe that kids need 3 things more than anything else in life: TIME... AFFECTION... POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT(in that order). PAUSE Everything else is fluff in the long run (and I do mean everything). Let your children know you are proud of them and SPEND time with them. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you are spending time. Even a walk around the block can be quality time... PAUSE It’s really that simple. LIFE The best piece of advice I ever got in my life was: PICK. YOUR. BATTLES. PAUSE Choose your words carefully and make sure there is a good reason for every action that you take and do. If a particular action or comeback doesn’t feel like it’s worth doing, don’t bother... save your ‘ammunition’ for another day. PICK. YOUR. BATTLES. 9. Anyone know who Jim Valvano was? PAUSE He was the head coach of the North Carolina State 1983 NCAA men’s basketball championship team. In 1993 he was dying of cancer and he gave an emotional speech at the first annual ESPN ESPY awards. Only months after he gave this speech he passed away but I would like to read a short excerpt from that speech: "I'm a very emotional, passionate man. I can't help it. We hug, we kiss, we love. And when people say to me how do you get through life or each day, it's the same thing. To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week; you're going to have something special." PAUSE Is that good advice or what? Laugh. Think. Cry. Add love in there and isn’t that what life is essentially all about? Finally NUMBER 10. Follow your gut in life, it's rarely wrong and even when logic says to do something else, your gut should take precedence. LISTEN to your gut... As a lifelong card player there is only way I could end my speech, and it’s 2 simple words for Chris & Rebecca, 2 of the best words ever put together... GOOD... LUCK. (VERY LOUD) GIVE IT UP FOR YORKY & BECCA!!! Dan |