The Daily G.I.F.T. from The GratiDude

I’ll be here if you are here for me, every time, to dry your eye when you cry.

www.grateful4.org

Gratitude

Intention

First

Things

The G.I.F.T. Today

Grateful-for friends, old like Joe and new like Keith, all love all the time

Intention-slow down in meetings today, extra patient

First-yoga schedule

Things-coaching website and pdfs

Morning Platitude from The GratiDude

There are a few phenomenon that I can attribute to why my friend group grew up and in general a lot of kids from that time period of growing up in the 70s and 80s are so fiercely loyal and focused on friends.

One being it was a new era of women working and when you had both parents working, you had what became known as latchkey kids, which is named after a study done by some jackass named latchkey.

In other words, there was that desire to study what was then a new phenomenon in American society of kids not having a parent at home when they were coming back from school and utilizing other resources and people in the community to help supervise and raise your kids.

It takes a village, right?

That’s on the macro societal side, however, on a more specific micro side, the less discipline kids had from a parenting style. It could certainly exacerbate this social phenomenon of the latchkey kids and turn them into what might be called loose latchkey kids, which I would’ve fallen into if that subcategory.

And by no means was I alone in the 70s, because in elementary school the kids who had a mom waiting for them had become the minority. My closest handful of friends also had freedom after school with no parents waiting for them because they had moms that had jobs outside of the house versus just the nonpaid tremendous amount of work that is running a household.

We got away with a lot of things and we had a lot of adventures. We were in no rush to get home and we certainly got to know the neighborhood forensically through all our adventures walking about and limited supervision.

For example, one thing we did in elementary school periodically was something that we called “tasting day“.

Tasting day was when we would go to one of the houses with no parents like mine or one of my other friends and we would concoct something from the kitchen of various ingredients that should never be combined and take turns tasting it and try not to throw up or get sick. Welcome to the mind of 10 and 11-year-old boys with nothing to do and lots of time on their hands.

I’m sure we left tremendous messes in the kitchen, consumed expensive ingredients for no reason and had a wonderful time doing it.

By fifth grade, I started to play organized sports basketball and baseball, and the kids from those experiences became core friends that I hung out with quite a bit. On top of all of that, my parents never came to any of my games which obviously caused me a great deal of pain and longtime trauma that I’ve only recently been able to understand and integrate in the last few years as strange as that may sound of some. And because my parents weren’t engaged in my life and extracurricular activities fully, I integrated myself into the household of my teammates and coaches’ families and spent a lot of time with them.

I was notorious for showing up at the Helber house(The late Paul Helber coached a bunch of my summer travel baseball teams) hours before departure for a game just to hang out in a loving friendly house get some different food and feel what a healthy family felt like(healthy being loving and communicative in this case).

I became tight friends with all the dudes that I played basketball with and we ended up hanging out in the summertime off-season playing spades and trying to find a house with air conditioning that we could kick it in during those hot July and August days in Michigan.

These teammates became my tribe.

Now my tribe is composed of people that talk about things like their personal journey, their dreams, and aspirations how they are working on their own health and wellness and ways to integrate their past life experiences and traumas so that they can release themselves from limiting beliefs and pursue their own personal greatness.

I don’t want nor do I need to have any friends that constantly talk about business making money, politics, gossip, or other lower frequency subject matter that frankly bore the shit out of me and I don’t have any need for anymore.

I love business strategy, the art of the deal and all that stuff, but I don’t need to talk about that shit when I’m not working on it.

There are far more interesting subject matters relative to understanding the human experience in this short journey that we have that I find far more fascinating with my limited time and resources.

And I’ve moved into a mode in 2025 where I have love for everyone in all creatures on every corner of the planet. However, my direct energy expenditures and efforts are only being directed at those that are reciprocating and offering me support and energy in kind.

Don’t mistake this for a selfish or transactional quid pro quo arrangement, it’s instead a healthy way to make sure that you have good relationships in your core group and that everyone is mutually benefiting each other so that things are healthy, clear, loving, just, and enjoyable.

If I can dry your tears, please allow me to do so and take my sleeve and let’s turn that frown upside down.