Letters to my sons
A collection of thoughts and lessons I've learned along the way for my little men,
and anyone else that's interested.
My sons,
Have you ever met someone who really lights up a room? Someone with whom every conversation leaves you lighter and with whom every encounter leaves you feeling like you’re on top of the world? They bring light to others simply by being around them. They uplift, they elevate, they bring joy, they bring hope for something better. These people are illuminators.
On the flip side, there are people who do the opposite. These people suck the life right out of a room, and have the uncanny ability to ruin your mood. They spend their energies trying to glorify and uplift themselves, and are constantly trying to get you to acknowledge their superiority. They want to be seen as always right, as the one who knows the most, whose opinion ought to matter the most. They consistently manage to move the conversation to whatever happens to be on their mind, and are able to drag you into their mindset and into their world. These people are diminishers. They’re downers. If you’re unfortunate enough to know one, you need to minimize the impact that they have on your life by creating clear boundaries. More on that another time.
Today, I want to focus on what it looks like to be an illuminator, how we can attract more illuminators into our lives, and how we can encourage our relations to be more illuminating towards one another.
What allows someone to be an illuminator?
Illuminators are people that are very much less about themselves. Often, they are quite badass, but due to their own self confidence and their care for others, they don’t need their egos to be stroked and as a result do not draw attention to their own badass-ness. Their confidence doesn’t require the approval or awe of others. They are sure of themselves, and don’t need you to confirm or reinforce that.
In my life, I have had the awesome privilege of knowing a true illuminator. When I first met him, I left the conversation feeling light, full of joy, as if I could tackle the world. He was genuinely interested, excited, and impressed by the things in my life, and he expressed those feelings openly. He would ask me questions as if I was the expert on a given topic, and in doing so boosted my confidence ever so slightly. Leaving that conversation, everything looked just a little bit brighter, and I was able to wear a smile on my face the rest of the day. It wasn’t until years later that I learned about his pedigree and his own successes which were absolutely objectively larger than mine. Those successes never got in the way of him being genuinely interested and excited about the things in my life though, and never even came up in our early conversations.
How do illuminators all have the ability to do this?
- They don’t need the praise of others to feel good about themselves. Illuminators don’t allow the opinions of others to sway their opinions of themselves. They know that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and that they are valuable and the work they do is meaningful even if no one else knows about it or gives them praise for it.
- They have a good idea of what the meaning for their lives are. In his seminal work, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl describes the quest that every person must go through to discover meaning in their life, regardless of their circumstances. Illuminators are people who have done or are doing this work and have at least discovered that meaning in life is not found in the approval of others.
- They have resiliency. Illuminators know that each individual instance is never the end of the world. They have a long term view of life, and know that every little setback, while unfortunate, does not define them. They understand that suffering too must play a part of meaning in the overarching story arc of their lives.
A spirit of generosity
Illuminators are generous. They are generous with their time, their resources, their care, and their intention. A very simple question one can ask oneself at the onset is:
Do I take more from my world, or do I give more to it?
Honestly reflecting on this will allow us to first determine our posture towards others. A few potential follow up questions:
- In my personal time, am I regularly acting on behalf of others?
- Am I making my personal resources and skillset available to others?
- Am I being generous with my money? My time? My thoughts?
A spirit of generosity, of kindness, and of warmth needs to be cultivated over time, and can’t be faked. When you look into someone’s childhood, you get a window into the things that caused them to be the way that they are - the experiences, the learnings, the hurts, the fears - all of these help you understand how and why someone is wired the way that they are. So it is with us. When others look at us, they see the culmination of the experiences that we’ve had, and how we’ve responded to those experiences.
It has been said that we are not defined by our experiences, but rather by how we respond to those experiences.
And so my sons, my hope for you is that you are reflective in your response to your situations, and that you are intentional about cultivating a spirit of generosity. Do you enjoy helping others? Do you love giving back to your world? How do you treat others? How do you try to make your world a better place? By cultivating a spirit of generosity, you can become men that not only illuminate your relationships and local community but can become men that leave our world better than when you entered it.