I really wish I had posted this on the 1st of January or the 1st of July, because it isn’t so much a discourse, but an invitation.  I missed posting last night because my fellow coauthors and I got together for dinner and by the time I got to the keyboard and realized I couldn’t get logged into the site, I decided to fight with it in the morning today.  I had looked forward to getting together with these two gentlemen for quite awhile.  The last time we were all together we had to call it a quick evening due to the birth of Estlin, and we really didn’t get much of a chance to engage in our normal activities. It is hard to call any dinner normal, because, frankly any topic could come up for conversation and just as quickly be replaced by another taking us in a completely different direction.  Sure, we catch up on what is going on in our day to day lives, and that is very important, but we also end up drifting into thoughts and opinions on religion, ethics, leadership, service, and many other areas.  It was a desire to capture some of the essence of this experience and post it.  That is why we have run the gamut of posts from the absurd to the philosophical.

Now, some of you may be asking, why do some of the topics or themes repeat?  That is a good question and one I have been pondering in my preparation for this post.  I have a couple of theories.  First, I think we tend to revisit those topics, such as ethics, leadership/success characteristics, choice, etc., because we have found them to be such a core, integral part of making us the people we are today.  Some have been learned through strong adversity and some through poor choices, so the desire was to pass on what we learned to hopefully make it easier for someone else to walk through.  Those repetitive topics really seem to represent the foundational path we have taken to get where we are.  None of us followed a path cut by the other two, but we found ourselves at the same point, and these seem to be the core tenets of how we got here.

Second, frankly, we still run into challenges ourselves in these same areas every day.  Every day, I am faced with choices of how I am going to approach the events of the day.  Some days I do very well based on the experiences that have brought me to this point, but many other times I screw things up and have to find my way yet again.  There are still many times where I am faced with ethical dilemmas, which require commitment to doing the right thing, not the expedient thing.  There are leadership challenges that force me to take a closer look both at myself and my beliefs as I continue to be molded into the leader I will be tomorrow.  This process is an ongoing one, so our learning and our experience continues to grow, but the core themes tend to stay pretty much the same, which is why you will see them pop up every now and then.

Not all of our discussions can be considered thoughtful discourse on philosophical topics, though.  We also joke a lot, laugh a lot and just enjoy each others company.  That is why you see posts brimming with nostalgia, repeating some of our favorite humorous moments and quotes, and talking about people we admire/love.  While these posts are a little less frequent, you’ll probably see more of them coming out, mainly because those aspects are just as important, and just as big a part of us.  In any case, our desire in writing these is not to lecture from a podium, but to give you a seat around the table, listening to one of the many topics and war stories being discussed and being challenged to think through what your opinions and thoughts are.  So, grab a beverage of choice, dig in to the appetizers and join us as we take on the topic du jour.