Vol. 101 - AITA Pt. 2

On recognizing the shortcomings and doing our best to fix them

Well, the very first volume of this newsletter asked if I was the asshole. Volume 101 will do the same. The more things change, I guess.

A few weeks ago, I had a long and emotionally brutal conversation with someone very close to me, some of which included how angry, cynical, and sometimes mean I’ve become.

It was eye-opening in many ways, expected in others.

I mean, considering the state of the world, our country, the war on women, the fact that my social media likes to show me babies killed in rocket strikes at random, et cetera, et cetera, I don’t think I or anyone else can be blamed for a good heaping of anger, of cynicism, and of pain. Considering the fact that my family has been displaced for over a month and the fact that, on top of having two kids and two full-time, self-employed jobs, we take care of Emily’s ailing father, I’m often left feeling like a raw, exposed nerve. It’s no wonder I’m angry, cynical, and sometimes mean.

And though I think those traits can be helpful in certain ways (maybe not the mean part), none of it is any excuse to be unkind or otherwise unhappy, especially when it affects the people I love. And especially if it affects my kids.

To be clear, this person didn’t accuse me of the latter and I have no reason to think that my kids think of me as an angry person. But kids are observant. They see and hear everything. And so, if I am becoming angrier and more cynical, my kids are recognizing that. They’re ingesting it. And that can’t happen.

In the hours after this conversation, I thought about a lot of things. I thought about my relationship with my kids most of all.

I thought about my kids as grown adults, about how they might remember their father. I’d like to think that they’ll remember me as a fun guy, as a stern but reasonable dad, as someone who instilled in them the values of hard work and the importance of helping anyone who needs help, and, above all, as a good and caring man.

And I think that I’m on track to leave those impressions on my kids.

But, what this conversation made me realize was that they might also remember me as an angry, cynical, and sometimes mean man. And I don’t want that.

More importantly, I don’t want them to become angry, cynical, and sometimes mean people. I want them to look at the world and the people in it with joy and wonder.

So, am I the asshole? Yeah, sometimes. But I’m trying to be better. The issue was that I didn’t realize it. Now that I do, I can work on it. At the very least, I owe it to my kids.