Many a young man today has told me, “My parents didn’t teach me anything important.”
I’ve heard that parents don’t teach… how to pay your taxes, how to invest money, or how to purchase a house.
Today I’d like to talk about “the moment of truth”. Parents rarely speak of it now days.
Have you experienced “the moment of truth”? That moment that places you under such a stress that you think your heart will burst from your chest?
Did you have someone in your ear, either for real, standing right behind you… or a memory of someone talking into your ear… while you were under duress?
Softly speaking an encouraging word, or life advice? Or something different?
Mine recently came while archery hunting for whitetail deer.
I could have used some calming advice on a recent hunt. You can read about it here…
http://davebosquez.com/its-deja-vu-all-over-again-yogi-berra/
Experiencing the moment of truth can go one of two ways.
You can rise to the occasion and have a joyful celebration… or you can come up short, and feel angry, upset, and regret.
Especially in a hunting scenario.
Through the technique of introspection I examined my recent “moment of truth” and re-discovered my weak link in my character… the dreaded poverty stricken mindset.
Because at the exact “moment of truth” an old thought reared it’s ugly head, “I’ll never get another chance at the buck of a lifetime.” A weak link in the chain indeed.
But in that flash of an instant, and let’s call it what it is… panic, I forgot the oldest rule of all.
Spoken to me by my dad… and myself… speaking it to my sons… which is, as they say, “a cardinal rule”.
“You ALWAYS have the option of NOT SHOOTING.”
No matter what the situation is, regardless of the weapon of choice, if you are the shooter, there is one thing you CAN ALWAYS DO… “just wait, don’t shoot”.
I did not hear that voice that day.
I heard my voice, “Buck of a lifetime! It’s now or never!”
Hear the desperation, and poverty stricken mindset in that statement?
Why rush the shot? Why not let him do whatever it was he was going to do? So what if he “gets away”, you can hunt tomorrow too.
I thought I had, over the course of the last two years, learned how to not listen to that voice.
The thought of true pressure revealing true character has me in a contemplative state. I was about to resign myself to the thought that my character is not where I would like, or what my writing… may allude it to be.
Until I remembered the phrase, “It is not the critic who counts…” espoused by Mr. Theodore Roosevelt.
That is where a mans character has to be truly tested… and where is the moment of truth… but at the center of…
The Arena!
What is your Arena? Have you come to the center of it… and yourself yet?
I asked my second oldest if he appreciated it when I was whispering in his ear, when he was twelve, and came through at his moment of truth, and scored on his own “buck of a life time”.
“Heck yeah Davey, I was twelve and freaking out, it kept me focused and calm.”
So as an EMERGING MAN… looking to ENCOURAGE, EQUIP & ENGAGE… don’t forget to pay attention yourself to that still small voice quietly saying, “Just wait, you don’t have shoot.”
theemergingman.com 