Time, Perspective, and Type 2 Fun (9-22-25)

A bottle of white liquid pouring out of a dropper

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Happy Monday!

You’re getting a blog on Monday, because I’m going to do a few things for work this morning, and then I’m taking the rest of the week off. Last week was about making the most of a situation. This week is about time, perspective, and type 2 fun.

Recap: Diane and a 4-month-old Alice are living with my parents. It’s chaos. My wife is looking at potential houses to buy, which is totally stressing her out. My dad goes with my wife to check out houses to help out with Alice. Anyway, they go to a house and long story short, my dad knocks over the bottle of Alice’s milk and gets it all over the dining room table in the house. This takes an already stressful situation and makes it worse. They are frantically cleaning it up, and Diane is worried about potentially ruining someone’s table and is feeling more overwhelmed than ever. Ultimately, everything is okay. Fast forward a few hours, and the milk spilling incident has turned from super stressful to hilarious. They tell the story to my mom when she comes home, and everyone is laughing. Fast forward to today, and the milk spilling incident is one of our favorite stories to tell.

Let’s connect some dots. When you read the story above, I hope you smiled or chuckled a bit. It’s kind of funny. It’s also a situation we can all relate to. Maybe you didn’t spill milk, but we’ve all made a mess which turned a stressful situation into something even worse. However, with a little time and perspective, we can begin to see the humor in the moment. My family calls these kinds of things type 2 fun, a phrase we learned from a friend. Type 1 fun is when the situation is enjoyable and funny as it happens. Type 2 fun is when the situation is bad at the moment, but later on you see the joy and humor in it. As I get older, I’ve learned that most initially stressful situations in life end up as Type 2 fun.

The challenge: When you run into something tough/stressful/bad will you be able to create the distance and perspective to see the joy and humor?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Accomplishment, Flowers, and Appreciating Beauty (5-25-22)

Last week was about garage door motors and designing customer solutions. This week is about accomplishment, flowers, and appreciating beauty.

We have lived in our house for about 10 years. During that time, my wife has spent a significant amount of time and energy planting trees, bushes, and flowers. None of these things necessarily accomplish anything. The flowers don’t provide food. The flowers don’t open garage doors. The flowers are not essential to our house. At the same time, they are valuable. They give us a chance to experience beauty and peace, and that’s worth something. (Pic is from my son planting the flowers to spell “Yay”. Totally not necessary. Totally bring me joy.)

What does this have to do with anything? In a world that is so focused on achievement, it’s easy to get obsessed with only doing things if they accomplish something vs. enjoying something for what it is. We walk, because we need to get in our steps. We read, but mainly read books to help us be better employees. We do things at work, but only because they check boxes so we can move to the next rung of the ladder. I get stuck in these ruts. Do you?

The flowers at my house remind me that sometimes life is just about doing things that help us witness the beauty around us. Life is writing poems, even though those poems are for the sole sake of creating. Life is doing sidewalk chart art because it is cool to make monsters on your driveway. Life is going on a walk just because the weather is nice. Life is reading a book for the joy of being transported to a new world, whether that is a time in history, a magical land, or somewhere beyond. Life is sitting outside on your front porch and just zoning out with friends. When life is crazy busy, the thing that gets me through is pausing to remember that life isn’t always about accomplishment. Sometimes it is about witnessing the everyday wonder hidden in small moments.

The challenge: Will you stop to appreciate the beauty in life?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from being a Dad Part 4 Keep your Eyes Open for Joy (4-12-17)

Last week was about the darker side of parenting, uber-competitive parents, and staying focused on what matters. This week I want to bring us back to the light side with a focus on keeping our eyes open for joy and wonder.

There is something special about the way young kids view the world. I feel that little kids always have their eyes open looking for magic, joy, and something special. If you want an example of what I’m talking about, just check out the picture. A few Saturdays ago we all went to Menards to check out patio furniture and other things. We were walking down the aisle when Violet saw the safety cones and got excited like she had found a long lost treasure. Before we knew what had happened, she had a new hat and Alice had followed suit. They were then posing and marching in their awesome new attire. When Violet looks at the world, she always sees something worth paying attention to whether it’s the different colors on gas stations to how clouds look like animals.

I don’t know about you, but when I see safety cones, I don’t automatically think hats. It’s sad to say, but I feel as we grow up we slowly lose our ability to always search for joy and wonder. Luckily for me, these two young ladies are helping me see the world as a much more interesting and beautiful place.

You are probably wondering how this connects with work. Every day we work. We see emails, spreadsheets, slides, meetings, people, etc. It’s really easy to just see these things the way they appear to be. It’s really easy to become numb and blind to them. It’s easy to take them for granted. It’s a lot harder to go into these each and every day with eyes that are looking for joy, beauty, magic, and anything else that might be good in this world.

The challenge: As we go through our days do we see the potential for joy in them the way Violet sees the joy in a safety cone? What are some things you’ve seen lately that bring you joy? (Write a list. It always helps me see how beautiful the world can be.)

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry