An Expression Parents Should Never Use – “Do As I Say Not As I Do”

Last night, as my son was checking in to board his flight to Brazil, I had to walk away from the counter to gain my composure.  I was determined not to allow him to see me shedding any tears.  Tears shed only because he was leaving and I would miss him but tears shed from lamenting the current state of my own life.

Do As I Say Not As I Do

Don’t misunderstand me, I am truly grateful for everything that I have and appreciative of all that I have been able to accomplish thus far in my life.  However, it would be disingenuous if I didn’t admit that each time that I consider where my son is currently living and what he is currently doing with his life, I can’t help but feel a bit ashamed.  Perhaps ashamed is too strong of a word.  Maybe, the more accurate word would be to say that I feel a little bit like a hypocrite.

He boards a plane headed to Brazil where he is living, training and playing soccer in a professional environment pursuing the one thing that he is more passionate about than anything else in the world.  While I – the father who has encouraged him to pursue his dream each day as if his life depended on it having a well-structured plan, attacking each day as if it was his last breath, living urgently and with a single-minded purpose – find myself doing something far less purposeful and passionate than that which I have encouraged him to do.  I call this hypocrisy.

Who Am I?

So as I walked outside to catch my breath while he waited on his boarding passes, I had to accept, at that moment, I had become one of those (in polite terms) duplicitous parents.  I had become the parent who admonishes his child about pursuing a benchmark but who himself does not uphold the standard he establishes for his child.   This personal realization was more chilling and harsh than was the wintry temperature and the swirling winds I experienced while standing outside.

In those brief moments standing alone in the cold, I reflected not only on how much I would miss my son but more importantly, I realized that I had become someone I swore that I would never become.  I recognized that I had become more like my father than I ever cared to admit.

I had become my father’s son maybe more prominently than I was my son’s father. 

Even on Halloween this realization is a most horrifying self-discovery; like arriving to the ball in the most elegant carriage and going home in a pumpkin.

King Duplicitous’ Son

I had become my father: the son to the King of Duplicity.  To understand the significance you need only to look up the word, duplicity; there you would find my father’s picture attached to the dictionary definition.  If you Googled duplicity, you would find a YouTube channel specifically dedicated to my father.  And if you were a contestant on Jeopardy, Alex Trebek would undoubtedly have you use my father’s name in a question. “I’ll take duplicitous for 200, Alex”

So even though I did not verbally say as I my father far too often said to me “Do as I say, not as I do”, I know the present state of my life communicates non-verbally the same cautionary warning to my son.  In essence, each time my son and I part, I in effect say to him

“Naeem don’t imitate my behavior but obey my instructions: pursue your dreams unapologetically with passion, urgency and focus while I do as the overwhelming number of people do – simply do what I can do to get by”. 

This is a sobering and depressing realization.  This is called living the hypocrisy.

Living the Hypocrisy

How did I become the hypocrite that I swore – under my breath each time my father disappointed me as a child – I would never become?  When did I stop dreaming?  Where did I lose my passion?

Surely, the adolescent Nate did not dream about sitting at a desk each day monitoring the performance of the stock market.  I know that the teenage Nate definitely did not crave getting an accounting degree and a law degree so that he could sit and gaze into a computer screen daily.  What happened to the man I once dreamt of becoming?  Oh where is the passionate man who I direct my son to be?

Now that my son is back in Brazil safe and sound, I am left to ponder those things that I hope the majority of adults – those like me who don’t want their children to become clones of themselves – contemplate.

What is it about adulthood that keeps us doing those things which give us little if any joy as opposed to trusting that success can be found in abundance if instead we do those things we love?  What is it about adulthood that convinces us to seek internal fulfillment from outside material possessions rather than listening to our gut and answering the internal call of our heart?

What is it about adulthood that makes us living and breathing examples of the Great Imitators – those who like my father have mastered the art of “Do as I say, not as I do”?

Hope No More!

My hope, no more succinctly, my plan is to be able to say to my son the next time that I see him simply “Do as I say”.

I’ve got my work cut out if I am going to exclusively exist as my son’s father rather than my father’s son. For starters, I plan to find and follow my passion just the way I have encouraged my son to do –  without equivocation.  I refuse to be like my father, in polite terms, duplicitous!

How about you?  Are you going to start pursuing your passion or will you continue to be one of the Great Imitators?