🛫Upward Lift, Not Downward Spiral

The Rotting Tree on Your House

More than half the battle happens in between our own ears.

We aren’t exactly strangers to sustained 30+ mph in the Charleston area. It comes with the territory. When Hurricane Helene was skirting our area all night long I heard the sideways rain hitting the windows. Despite a decent rain coming down, you hear each individual drop peppering your house. I was a little anxious b/c no kidding: I’ve gone on the roof a few times to put down the equivalent of Flex-Seal on shingles that are lifting up from wind.

What no one can prepare for is a 🌳 that rots from the inside and doesn’t appreciate 30+ mph sustained winds. I got up to get after it at about 430a that morning, headed to the front of the house. 15 minutes later as I’m type-rocking to Calvin Harris my chair is lightly jarred. 

“Shit, tornado? No, abruptly stopped. Earthquake?”

Within 5 seconds I convened with my wife to run vitals: she, the dog and the sleeping toddler on the monitor were all good. A final hypothesis quickly entered my brain so I opened our backdoor to confirm all I could see was…bark.

The old county-owned water oak had been rotting from the inside and a 1/3 of it snapped off from the 10 foot diameter trunk. It landed on our home, our detached garage and our car.

After the physical safety relief melts away and the sun comes up, it’s easy to have a knee-jerk “woe is me” psyche.

I’ve got a huge tree on top of multiple parts of my house to get off. The roof is punctured. The ceiling is leaking. Water ruined items in our bathroom. I have to deal with insurance. I probably have to pay the higher hurricane deductible. The car is shattered (again). That’s another insurer to deal with. Did we have the only tree in Charleston that fell? Why did it fall towards our house? How much rain is going to fall while I can’t even tarp the roof? Do I have a tarp? Do I even have the cash on hand to deal with the deductible?

I had a choice. I could submit to that downward spiral of thought that went through my head in that instant.

Or, I could put some wind in the sails, some lift under the wings. I would come out swinging. I could teach my 2.5 year old how problems can really compound. Or, I could teach him what it looks like to take action immediately, and do it with a smile and have fun doing it. Default fucking happiness, every single time.

Your 🧠 can tell you lies. Your brain can let you be the victim. You can count all that’s wrong and all the things you’re not crushing at. Or, you can account all that is right and well in your world and construct the action you will take on the things that need work. Don’t mistake this for machismo or hubris.

It relates back to giving yourself some grace and some credit for all you DO, not loathing over the things that you didn’t do. There will always be a self-made list of things you didn’t do. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably not a deadbeat and probably not shirking on a lion’s share of your to-do’s - aspirational or operational.

Appairent does this for you 👀. Our proactive, virtual assistant and accountability service ensures that you take action and save time, leveling up as a parent, partner and person.

Bias to Action

My hope is this quick exercise will reinforce the momentum, progress and positive change you’re creating vs. fretting about perfection or a all that’s still left to execute. It’s the DIY of what we’re trying to do at Appairent - account for what you have done and create immediate action on the next thing, and keep the upward lift under your wings.

Having hell coming up with all you did do? Don’t dwell, have a bias to action, and get to doing. You’ve likely heard that in a career setting before. Same applies here.

Run through this in just 5ish minutes. See what the downward spiral could look like. Take the opposite approach to get your footing and momentum. Decide a definitive action to start/continue the upward lift.

"Outro”

That day I got my ass on the computer to register the County’s treefall in their system, registered my home and auto insurance claim before 8a. Tree was gone by Saturday afternoon and roof was tarped on Monday. I taught my son some science on heavy things falling. On Sunday we and I drove our Jalopy down to the marina to bask in the beautiful day God sent ahead of and behind the storm. We’re going to build this house better and stronger out of that inconvenient Friday morning…stay tuned.

I also used relativity to recall just how thankful I am about our situation, all the time. My heart and eventually my hands and my wallet will be with the real victims of Hurricane Helene. There was very real loss and life change on a completely different order of magnitude for many. That same day there were 4,698 worse things that I could need to endure…got ya.

Why go into a downward spiral about all the worse things you could endure, when you can think about all the amazing support, innovation, grace, love and joy that’s being generated every day? Upward lift baby 🛫 .

🍻 

Hat

Forward/share with any dads that might benefit from Appairent!