A letter to my children

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a lengthy article. It comprises of nine 'lessons'/ideas I wanted to pass onto my children. Each should take 2-3min to read. It might be a piece you want to read in sections, all at once if you have 20min, or avoid completely, but I wanted to make you aware upfront. Thank you and I hope you find it meaningful and interesting. ***

This is a letter to my two children, Charlotte (5) and Jonathon (3).

If you've worked your way through The Barefoot Investor, you might recognise it as a checklist item towards the end, so a quick thank you goes to Scott Pape for the inspiration and helping me sort out that area of my life.

However, contrary to the other actions, the letter was a lengthy process, sitting unstarted for months, then incomplete for weeks.

The task got me thinking about losing my own dad and how much I would have valued something like a letter; how much I miss him during the crossroad and milestone moments in life, wishing I could ask for his advice, or at least know what he might have said.

It's an emotional process when you give it the time it deserves.

But it's done.

And I thought I would share it here, as a tribute to my kids, and in case it helps others to start their own (if they choose to).

I hope you find it meaningful.

Cheers,

GF

*****

Dear Charlotte and Jonathon,

I don't know at what point in your lives you will read this, or if you ever will.

I don't know if I'm still around, or if I'm a memory.

And I don't know what has taken place between now and then.

But I know I feel an immense wave of emotion writing this from simply considering the idea that I might not be here when your eyes scan these words.

I wanted to jot down some thoughts, some of the lessons and some of the ideas that I hope I've had time to present to you in life.

If I have, then maybe writing them here helps me articulate - and you understand - them better; if I haven't, then maybe it will be meaningful for you to have something from me, in my words, to continue our conversation when I'm gone.

I've deliberately stayed away from specific topics and moments in life, such as your wedding day, because, for all I know, they've been and gone by the time you read this.

Instead, this letter is filled with some of the ideas I think will be meaningful to you, regardless of time.

A lot of these idea might seem abstract, or unnecessarily complex.

"Why can't you just tell me the lesson and be done with it; skip the rationale?"

Because, if Wesley Snipes taught us anything in White Men Can't Jump, it's that there's a difference between listening and hearing.

There's a difference between knowing and understanding.

I'll come to this in the letter below, but it's an important differentiation and the reason why I haven't given you a bullet list of arbitrary, tyrannical rules to follow.

I managed to condense the list to nine, but, as always, I've overwritten it.

I figured, given this letter's purpose, that was ok. Plus, the whole 'understanding' thing.

So, where to start?

How about with the opening credits; a little theme music.

Listen to hip hop

If YouTube is still a thing by the time you read this (more likely, it's officially killed TV), here's something for you to be equal-parts humoured and mortified by: RhymeAudial "Parkbench Politics".

Yes, your dad was a rapper. But hey, it was fun and we even won a WA Music Industry Award for it.

While I joke about it and take the jibes from those who discover I was more than a casual listener, the reality is that hip hop taught me an immense amount about myself and the world.

I got my first taste of hip hop the same way most people are introduced to music - through friends and pop culture - but there was something about it that gripped me.

The well-crafted loops, the emotion-charged authenticity, the counter-culture and rebellion that naturally appealed to a teenage boy, the skill and talent of wordplay that made abundantly clear the difference between those who could rap and those who couldn't.

And the accessibility.

I'd always loved music - lyrics, to be precise - but never learnt an instrument.

That wasn't an issue with hip hop: download an instrumental, grab a pen and a piece of paper and away you go.

So, I started writing. Then I started recording.

My first attempt was some silly gangster rap that I recorded at my friend James' place using a $20 microphone and (the no-longer existent) Windows Sound Recorder.

It was hilariously horrible.

But I kept practicing, kept refining and eventually entered a competition.

I was terrified, but I was also very impulsive as a teenager and that moment was a classic example of my impulsiveness throwing me in situations I never would have tackled if I'd had the opportunity to stop and consider it.

The competition was at a nightclub, in front of hundreds of people, and, given none of my friends had taken the interest in rap that I had (and I was also kind of embarrassed, so hadn't told anyone), I was there by myself.

I'd made it through the tryout rounds and through to the finals, but that was as far as I got.

Afterwards, a guy came up to me and asked why I rapped in an American accent.

"That's the style I listen to," was all I could manage.

"You need to listen more," he responded.

It's a good metaphor for life and our world view, when you think about it.

We got on well and it turned out he was a DJ, making beats without a rapper; I was a rapper without a beat.

We teamed up and over the next few years made our own music (in our native accents), as RhymeAudial, doing shows everywhere from country sheering-sheds converted into music halls, to festivals, to empty pubs.

I've always been scared of crowds and I never got comfortable with live performances, but that was one of the gifts hip hop gave me.

It taught me about myself, what I'm capable of and that, if I face my fears, I can defeat them.

It also awoke in me a passion for writing and storytelling that I never really knew existed before it emerged.

And that's quite interesting.

The 19th Century psychiatrist Carl Jung had an idea he called circumambulation.

The basic premise was that, throughout life, we circle the person we are supposed to be - who we are destined to become - gradually spiralling into that focal point, like water rushing down a drain.

Every experience, every interest that grips us, every calling that pulls us in a certain direction, is our future self beckoning us to become who we are destined to be.

I don't know who I'm destined to become, but hip hop uncovered something within me and marked the start of a journey that has since taken me from writing raps, to journalism, to authoring and communications.

It's taken me on a journey that has been gradually spiralling around and focusing into storytelling.

I wanted to start this letter with this story because I will go on to talk about the responsibilities that are incumbent on you to carry through life (and the payoffs they will deliver).

But this is not one of those lessons.

This is a lesson in love, passion, inspiration and calling. It's a lesson on the beauties and wonders of the human experience.

Throughout life, you will hear a little voice calling you at times, beckoning you towards interests that grip you by the soul; moments that you'll want to throw your whole self into.

When you notice that voice, lend it your ear and let it guide you.

Don't let your fears stop you from hearing it - especially the fears of what others might think.

You never know what it will teach you, what journey it will take you on, who it will help you become, and what fun you'll have along the way.

'You can listen to Jimi (Hendrix), but you can't hear him'

Ok, so, why so much detail in this letter.

Partly, it's because when I lost my dad as a 22-year-old, I would have loved to hold a letter of such authenticity, that hadn't been cut or biased by a medium, that I could keep coming back to in my life - even if most of it was waffle.

But, mostly, it's a meditation on 'why': why we do the things we do; why it's important to understand that; and why you should take the time to use that understanding.

The quote for this lesson is from the 1992 street basketball classic White Men Can't Jump (don't watch it until you're at least 18).

One of the main characters, an African American man, is explaining to his Caucasian counterpart that white people might be able to listen to the music of another culture, but they can't hear its soul and message.

The can know, but they can't understand.

Knowing is like understanding the 'How' and 'What' of something; understanding unlocks the 'Why'.

Motivational speaker Simon Sinek spoke about this at the TEDx conference in his "Start with Why" talk.

The talk (and his subsequent book) discusses his idea of the Golden Circle; three concentric circles that move from 'Why' at the heart, to 'How', then 'What'.

Sinek's talk was focused on organisations and businesses and pointed out that every company knows what they do, most know how they do it, but there's a drop-off with the number that know 'why'.

But it's the organisations that understand the 'why' that are most successful.

Because when we understand the 'why' behind something, it engages our emotional limbic brain, which generates loyalty and trust - connection - and inspires and motivates.

It's one thing to do something; it's an entirely different thing to want to do it.

There's a danger associated with this, too, because if you don't invest time in the 'why', it doesn't mean the 'why' doesn't exist, it simply means you won't be conscious of what it is.

You'll be acting out the 'how' and 'what', but driven by a 'why' that you might not want to be driven by.

The 19th Century psychologist Carl Jung (as paraphrased by contemporary professor Jordan B Peterson) discussed this by stating that everyone lives out a myth and you should know what myth you're living out, because it might be a tragedy.

"The best way to understand your life is as a story, and maybe the best way to understand reality is as a story," Peterson said in a 2018 lecture, titled 'Why you should treat yourself as if you have value'.

"We tend to tell stories about our lives and we tend to understand lives as if they're stories.

"There's a rule that I learnt from the psychoanalysts - particularly Carl Jung - it's that if you're not the hero of your own story, then you're a bit part in someone else's and that part is one that's assigned to you and it's probably one you don't want to pick.

"We see this in Pinocchio ... someone whose strings are being pulled from behind the scenes and the idea there is that, if you're not your own person, then you're someone else's puppet, or something else's puppet."

That "something" is an important differentiation, because telling when someone external is manipulating you and pulling your 'why' strings is one thing, but what if that manipulation is an internal story that has gripped you and you're not even aware?

This is a subtle idea that drives you in a certain direction and it's not always easy to identify, but it shows up in the little utterances we tell ourselves, like, "I'm not good at tests", or, "I would have written a book, but life just got in the way".

Did life really get in the way? Or did you not write the book, because something else was holding you back; something you either subconsciously or consciously didn't want to confront? Something that you didn't invest the time into understanding?

And what damage is not understanding that 'something' doing? Because if it got in the way of one thing, you can bet your bottom-dollar it's getting in the way of other things.

And, lo and behold, because you've not decided to understand the story you're telling yourself, you've turned that story into a tragedy in which your narrative dictates that you will never pass tests and you will never achieve big goals because, well, that's life.

This is what Jung, Peterson and Sinek are talking about when they stress the importance of understanding the motivation behind behaviours - the 'why'.

I imagine there's a reason every child goes through year-long phases in which their most uttered word is 'why'.

I imagine that reason is at least partly because there are few tools more significant in making sense of the world than understanding 'why'.

We see the world through the stories we tell about it, and we see our role within that world through the stories we tell about ourselves.

We understand those stories through the 'why'.

Don't just listen; hear.

There are things we have to do and things we want to do

I had a ridiculously proud moment recently.

At the time of writing this, Charlotte, you're five-years-old and, Jono, you're three.

We were in the car on the way to daycare and school drop-off: if we're running late, school comes first; if we're on time, we go to daycare.

We were heading to daycare.

When Jono asked why (because he asks that of everything at the moment), before I could answer, you, Charlotte, piped up: "because we did the things we had to do, before doing the things we wanted to do."

God, that's such a hard concept to understand for some adults, let alone five-year-olds, and I was beaming with pride.

You were absolutely right, because, like every morning, you wanted to play with your toys; instead, you got dressed for school, ate breakfast, packed your bag and then played.

There's an interesting thread running through society at the moment that is pitting a culture of rights against one of responsibilities, and it's flowing into how we should treat children.

It focuses on ideas like telling children they have the right to avoid situations, people, topics - whatever - that make them uncomfortable.

Those claims are right, of course, because you do have the right to do - and not do - whatever you want (within reason), but it's horrible advice.

You might have the right to avoid an uncomfortable situation and might even be encouraged by adults with chides of, "You shouldn't have to be brave, darling", but you also have the responsibility to take that situation on.

If you are never given - and never seize - the opportunity to be brave, you will never become brave and life will wipe you out.

You will get caught in a feedback loop of anxiety, fear and paralysis and, the next time you face an uncomfortable situation, you'll be even less likely to have the courage to take it on.

And so on, and so forth, until you wake up one day and discover you're 50 and have the emotional intelligence and mental fortitude of a defeated adolescent.

Here's a real-life example of how this plays out.

I was listening to ABC Radio Perth and the topic of discussion was a recommendation by a social psychologist that school sports carnivals be made voluntary to minimise the uncomfortable feelings they impose on the children who don't enjoy them.

A flood of calls followed from people backing the recommendation, based on their own anecdotal stories of the 'suffering' they endured because they were made to try something they weren't good at and felt self-conscious and vulnerable as a result.

Take the 50-something-year-old, who stated they were so traumatised by being forced to participate in school sports that it took them 40 years to participate again, and they only did so due to health complications and orders from their doctor.

It was absolutely that person's right to never want to participate in sport again. It's even their right to want to blame school sports for that.

They got whacked so hard by life in that moment that they didn't want to get back up.

But to use that experience to justify the scrapping of compulsory school sports - to take away the uncomfortable, challenging situation altogether - is unfair and not right.

There were, of course, arguments such as, "Oh, but we're not taking it away from the kids who want to take part, so what's the problem?"

The problem? Life does not take the time to make a list of your strengths and weaknesses before choosing which challenges to throw at you.

In fact, you are guaranteed to suffer more under the burden of a challenge you don't want to face, than one you're prepared to face; that is true on a psychological, physiological and philosophical level.

The ironic part of this discussion is that the 'compulsory' nature of a challenge would actually prove more beneficial in the long-term for those people who feel uncomfortable with it, than it would the ones who willingly take it on.

Yet, the thread of elevating 'wants' over 'needs' remains strong.

If you let it win, it sidelines the part of you that has the potential to rise to the occasion, the part of you that produces and inspires in ways you never knew possible, the part that expands your potential and the part that voluntarily chooses to play the hero and not the victim.

The sports carnival debate is analogous for life: you might want to avoid uncomfortable situations, but that doesn't mean you have to, or even that you should.

It certainly doesn't mean the universe will stop throwing them at you.

It does mean, however, if you choose not to face them, you'll be ill-equipped to face them.

It means you'll become bitter towards the challenges themselves, then yourself for being incapable of facing them, followed by resenting those who can overcome them.

Life is very hard and it will whack you repeatedly and, in those moments, you might not want to get up.

It might not feel fair and you might want to blame the world, but, in those moments, shoulder the burden, be strong and get up.

Do the things you have to do, before doing the things you want to do.

There is no old man in the sky, but you should act like there is

There's a saying: idle hands are the Devil's tools.

I'll come back to that, but now we've introduced the Devil, let's talk about the Batman to his Joker - God.

This isn't a theology lesson - what you choose to believe in that regard is entirely up to you - but, to borrow from the title of a lecture on the subject, it's "an introduction to the idea of God".

Have you ever thought about what a god actually is? Not the who, or what religion they belong to; but what a god is.

Gods are many things to many people and this is in no way attempting to undermine those definitions, but for this purpose, I'm talking about the process of bringing a god to life.

These are the basic steps in the evolution of a god: a group of people hold a value; that value drives a raft of behaviours; through trial and error and the conservative nature of evolution, the successful behaviours that lead to prosperity remain and the ones that don't, cease to exist; after a while of acting out these behaviours, a member of that group observes what everyone is doing (because, contrary to intuition, we don't think-first-then-act - we mostly do the opposite and then have to work out why we did something); that observed behaviour is dramatised in artform - maybe a story, a painting, or a song; someone articulates what is being dramatised; and out of that articulation, an ideal is born.

It sounds complicated, but it's actually quite simple and you both - like every developing child in history - embodied this concept.

You observed the way mum and I parented, then you dramatised it in your play when acting out "mums and dads".

Then, when one of you dramatised incorrectly, the other spoke up in objection to the behaviour, because you had identified the ideal known as "parent" and it wasn't being adhered to.

This is the same process that led to the creation of gods - the ultimate ideals.

And two things happen when an ideal is born.

The first is that it becomes a guiding light that provides something to aspire to; a better way of being that demands work and investment to achieve.

The second is it immediately and simultaneously becomes a relentless, merciless judge; if there's something to aspire to that isn't actively being worked towards, then the current state is insufficient.

That is why, when we behave in a way contrary to the values we hold - the ideals we have set - we feel shame and guilt in the pits of our stomachs, because we know we're not being all we could and should be.

This is also how the concept of God as an old man in the sky was conceived; the ideal is something greater than us - above us - that constantly watches, directs and judges us.

So, if there is no man in the sky, why do I hope you will act like there is and aspire to please him?

Because idle hands are the Devil's tools.

The ideal is everything you value in life and what you value inescapably generates goals for you to work towards, and you need goals to give your life purpose and meaning.

Without an ideal - without a goal to work towards - you will find yourself wandering aimlessly and, if you're not consciously being constructive, you will inevitably be destructive.

That sounds a bit dramatic, right? It's not. It's the universal law of entropy that grips everything in existence.

Think about a building that's left unattended and unused for 100 years: it will naturally decay all by itself.

That's why idle hands are the Devil's tools.

Without deliberate, purposeful, positive direction, you make decisions and act out behaviours for the purpose of, well, making decisions and acting out behaviours.

Occasionally you might get lucky, but more often you will produce negative results.

Like that building, life requires conscious effort, vision and maintenance to keep it standing.

Make the effort to work out what it is in life that you value - what is worth valuing - then take the time to listen to that ideal.

Let it create the goals that will give you direction; let those goals drive your behaviours and let them judge you.

Let them inspire you to aspire - to please the old man in the sky - and smile when you do.

There's little else in life more meaningful than that.

Squirrels collect nuts and so should you

While we're on the subject of goals and aspirations, let's talk about sacrifice, because what happens when you set a goal is you will make sacrifices to attain it.

This is a pretty special phenomenon, too.

It's one of those aspects of human life that we take for granted; that most of us act out, without even being aware we're doing it, or thinking about why we do it.

Yet, we're the only living beings (that we know of) that consciously do it.

That is because we're also the only living beings (that we know of) that have developed a concept of the future.

And, because we have a concept of the future, we're also the only living beings (that we know of) that have developed an awareness of our own vulnerability.

When we set a goal, we do so by envisioning a better version of life for the future than the one in which we currently live, but to attain that, it requires sacrifice in the present.

Take a mortgage, for example: because we are aware of the future and the unknown dangers it can deal us, we're aware that we need shelter (a house) and, therefore, we sacrifice part of our pay today, to have a roof over our heads that protects us physically, and also provides a financial asset, in the future.

This isn't limited to finances: someone who works on their physical health is sacrificing the pleasantness of sedentariness and sugar-filled treats today, for a healthier, better-feeling body in the future; someone who sacrifices doing something they wanted to do to help a friend in need, will have a stronger relationship with that person in the future.

Other animals act this out, but they do so because it's an innate behaviour, not because they're consciously protecting themselves against the dangers of the future.

As psychology professor Jordan B Peterson points out: squirrels collect nuts for the winter, because squirrels collect nuts for the winter; they're not sitting there thinking, "Man, last winter was hard, so I'm going to collect extra nuts this time around".

So, my hope for you is that you take the time to understand the importance of sacrifice - of delayed gratification.

I said this isn't limited to finances, but I hope you pay particular attention to finances.

Think of it this way: if you get a job at 13-years-old and sacrifice $20 a week - which in itself can buy you nothing of great value - for 10 years, by the time you're 23, you'll have almost $10,500.

Not a year goes by that a story doesn't pop up in the news about a 20-something-year-old with a property portfolio that has shored up their financial future, all because they began putting money aside when they could.

Let me be really clear about something, though: this is not about stuff; this is about security.

It's about making small, bite-sized, barely-noticeable and achievable sacrifices in the present, for the sense of infinitely greater security in the future.

And, if you sort yourself out, you'll be more capable of helping those you care about, including your own family when the time comes.

I'm not suggesting you give up every material dream of the present for the sake of a hypothetical future - you need to enjoy life and have fun - but sacrificing a little today, can create a far better tomorrow, whether that's money, time, energy - whatever.

We're the only living beings that have conceptualised this idea.

Do yourself a favour and us it - make the sacrifices necessary to minimise the unknowns you have to worry about.

You'll be far happier for it.

And read the Barefoot Investor - it's probably up to its 20th edition by now.

If you've made a mistake, go see your dentist

I want to tell you a story about a dentist, but I need to begin with life before the dentist.

I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, many of which stemmed from the recurring theme of insecurity, which manifested itself in defensiveness, aggression and stubbornness.

If I was in a situation in which I felt out of my depth, my response would be to attack the situation, or the person creating it.

It was a strategy founded in imposter-syndrome and prone to irrational outbursts and, if someone pushed back, the situation escalated rapidly; it was an all-or-nothing approach.

I'm not telling you this to grandstand, or be a martyr; I'm telling you so you can see that no one is perfect - not even (especially) your parents - and it's important to accept that and try your best, regardless.

Thankfully, I woke up - grew up - but it took a while to get there and, for the past few years, I've been attempting to fix my mistakes.

That's where the dentist comes in.

Years ago, I had an appointment with my dentist which, of course, I forgot.

I made a mistake. And when they called to ask where I was, I made my second.

I could have acknowledged my error and attempted to fix the problem, but instead I got defensive and turned it back on them, blaming the wording in their reminder message.

They pushed back. I escalated. And I was irrationally and unnecessarily rude.

And, then, when the owner of the practice made a follow up call, I escalated again.

I didn't go to a dentist for five years, solely because of the sense of shame and guilt I felt.

I was so insecure that, in that moment, I couldn't even apologise. It was easier to avoid the dentist altogether.

But I never forgot it.

The shame stayed with me and I knew it was never going to ease, unless I did something about it.

So, recently, I booked an appointment at the dentist, but before I went in, I bought a card and I wrote out my apology.

I detailed every uncomfortable aspect of the scenario, everything I wish I had done differently and every mistake I had made.

It had been years since the incident and I had no way of knowing if the practice was still owned by the same people, or if they'd remember me, but, as it turned out, it was - and they did.

As my shaky hands passed the envelope and my quivery voice recounted the story and apologised, and as they responded with "it must have taken a lot for you to do this; thank you", the guilt and shame washed away.

I've been back for my regular visits ever since. And, if I can't make one, I'll call.

You will make mistakes in your life - lots of them - and some will be minor, while some will be really bad, but the kicker is that the people around you will do the same.

No-one is perfect, but that's not the point; the point is to know that no-one is perfect, then be the best you can be, despite that fact.

And if you make a mistake along the way, that's fine; but apologise, atone, correct and move on.

Don't hide from it, because not only will it follow you, but it will make everyone involved feel worse.

Life is hard: forgive yourself when you don't get things right - it will help you forgive those around you.

And, together, you can work towards being better.

So, go see your dentist.

You are but a 'dwarf, perched on the shoulders of giants'

This timeless metaphor is not meant to disrespect you, but it is meant to humble you.

Philosopher John of Salisbury explained it as meaning that "we see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature."

As you grow into your individual identity, you're going to notice the faults and fallacies of everything around you.

Like every dawning generation before you, the temptation will be strong to lay the blame for those faults at the feet of the preceding generation.

It'll come out in the form of: "Look at the world we've been left with to fix, and it must be fixed for the sake of our children!"

Of course, it's absolutely true.

Everything around you is corrupt, due to the inescapable fact that it was created in the past by a decaying generation.

It was created in one environment incapable of continually updating itself in the present.

It is therefore the burden of every generation to update the artefacts of the previous generations, to ensure they remain relevant.

So, yes, it's true; it's the necessary truth that forever spurs the next generation to be better.

It's true when you feel confined and restrained by your culture, with a desire to break free.

It's true when you and your friends want to protest against the injustices of my generation, with exasperated wondering of "how could they do such things?! How could they let it get to this?!"

It's all true.

But it's also true that we did the same thing. And it's also true that the next generation will do the same to you.

And it's also true that none of us would have the rights, abilities, freedoms, opportunities and comforts (especially comforts) to draw those conclusions, to level those accusations, to make those assumptions, if it wasn't for everything that came before us and the head-start it gave us.

It's your job to examine, constructively and respectfully criticise, and then improve the world around you and I encourage you to embrace it.

I encourage you to take part in protests (peaceful) and demand change where it's needed.

But I do so with the hope that, in those times, you will remember that you are the dwarf, not the giant.

Play a sport (you can decide which one)

One of my friends' dads passed away recently.

At the funeral, my friend in his eulogy said that his dad had a rule: "You must always play a sport".

He explained that it didn't matter which sport the kids played, simply that they adhered to the rule of playing a sport.

And it's a rule I want to pass on to you.

If you try a sport and hate it, by all means give it away, but try another. Then another.

And keep trying until you find one you love. If you can't, play the one you hate the least.

Of course, like every message in this letter, the lesson is not as superficial as the instruction.

This might be an instruction to play sport, but it's a lesson on how to adapt and interact with the world in the best possible way, by expanding your experiences of it and the people within it.

When we encounter something unfamiliar to us - the strange and the unknown - our bodies react by engaging their threat response circuitry.

This is the system that, in the past, kept us alive by enabling us to respond instantaneously, without thought-delay, to threats.

The problem is, these days, the threats we react to are far removed from the threats those circuits were designed to react to.

Bears have been replaced by bosses, the unknown woods by fiscal uncertainty, and starvation by body image obsession.

Now, hold that thought; let's talk about the need to belong.

We have a fundamental need as people for belonging and attachment and when that need is fulfilled, the good vibes flow.

There were times when that sense of belonging was much easier to define, before the days of the internet and hyper-connectivity, affordable air travel and multinational businesses; when a country's borders more explicitly represented an us-and-them mentality.

Times aren't so black and white anymore: we interact with the global community on a daily basis and knowing who we are and to whom we identify has never been more complicated.

Yet, that need to belong remains.

So, we meet it by seeking out those just like us.

There's nothing strange about that - we've largely always done it - but the difference is we used to have to do it through human connections, which would make us realise there was no such thing as 'just like us' and everyone was different in some way.

Those days are gone and human connections in forming our group identity have effectively been erased; our hyper-connected world makes our echo chamber one of global proportions.

We strengthen our sense of belonging by defending our ideological patch from - and by deliberately avoiding - the strange and the unknown; people, ideas and experiences foreign to us.

This is 21st Century tribalism, where we are more polarised than ever.

This is where bipartisanship not only seems impossible, but it seems a fictitious idea; where people talk across each other, because they're convinced their stance is correct and everything else is wrong - because the thousands of people on the internet told them so; where there's no compromises, because everything is a zero-sum win-or-lose game. 

We play in our sandbox only with people who are exactly like us, reacting to outsiders with a disproportionate threat response and viciously protecting that sense of belonging and attachment for the sole reason that it's the only sense of group belonging we have.

So, why sport?

Did you know soccer is played by more than 250 million people, across 200 countries (according the always-accurate Wikipedia)? A Quora thread puts that number at 3.5 billion people, but I have no idea how that's calculated - maybe if you kick a can down the street it counts. Regardless, the number is high.

The same thread has cricket as the world's second most popular sport, at 2.5 billion participants and the International Cricket Council has 125 cricket-playing countries on its books. Netball has 20 million across 72 countries.

Sport doesn't care about the background of those people; it doesn't care about their sandbox, or whatever arbitrary story they're telling themselves about their identity.

It brings us together under a shared purpose and a common goal and, when you learn to work together on the field, it will change your approach off the field to how you work with people who are different to you.

This undeniable power of sport was displayed during the World War I Christmas Truce, when rival soldiers left the trenches to play soccer against each other, before resuming hostilities.

You have a responsibility to play sport, because sport will teach you a sense of identity, value and purpose that expands far beyond your sandbox.

It will open you to new experiences and broaden your definitions of known and unknown.

It will introduce people, scenarios and circumstances into your life that teach you to react and interact with the world in a way that will make that world better for everyone.

It will broaden your support network for times when you need it, and for when it needs you, and will expand your thinking in ways you never knew possible.

The endorphins aren't bad, either.

Sport does all of that; it does it without you even knowing it.

All you have to do is pick one and show up.

Finally, always remember, I am so proud of you and I love you - forever

In compiling the bestselling biography, Tuesdays With Morrie, author Mitch Albom sat by the hospital bed of his lifelong mentor, Morrie Schwartz, to preserve the last of his lessons before he died.

As that realisation dawned on Albom - that he was writing the last words of someone he loved - he was overcome with emotion and the pair had the following exchange in response.

“Everything that gets born, dies.” He (Morrie) looked at me. “Do you accept that?”

Yes.

“All right,” he whispered, “now here’s the payoff. Here is how we are different from these wonderful plants and animals.

“As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away.

"All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on—in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

If I'm still around when you read this, then hooray for that, and you can show it to me and remind me of all the crazy thoughts that fly around my head.

If I'm not still around, then all the lessons, ideas and thoughts aside, I want you to remember a few things above all else.

First, I love you to the moon and back and for all eternity, with no qualifications or exceptions.

Second, I am so enormously proud of you, no matter what successes or stumbles, sound choices or mistakes you've made.

Third, both of those things remain true forever and will never change.

My dad - your grandad - died when I was 22.

We had a strained relationship for much of my teenage years and it was mostly a result of my behaviour, as I attempted to forge my own identity and independence.

It's not a story unique to me - most teenagers go through the same thing - the difference is that many get to come out stronger on the other side.

But about six months before he passed away, we began to mend our relationship and, for that, I'm forever grateful.

It gave me a hint of reassurance that he didn't die wondering whether or not I loved him, or whether or not I knew he loved me.

But just a hint.

Everyone constantly reassured me of how proud he would have been of me and how much he loved me, and how much he knew I loved him.

And the rational part of me knew that, of course, but the emotional part didn't care about rationalising.

It binged on regret and shame.

And it took a lot of growing up and forgiveness - much of which remains ongoing - to break that cycle.

I don't want you to have to go through the same journey, even though I know it's possible no amount of words or letters will stop those thoughts arising.

Nevertheless, I'm saying it explicitly here: I love you - always have and always will; and nothing that I have done - or will do - in my life makes me prouder than you two kids.

My relationship with your grandad has healed now, largely as a result of the seven-year process I undertook of writing his biography for the both of you.

At the end of it, our relationship had healed and I had grown; I wasn't the same person as when I started, and neither was he.

How was that possible?

Life is strange like that and consciousness is a phenomenon we haven't come close to understanding.

You can change the meaning and an interpretation of the past, simply by changing your perception of it and relationship to it in the present.

You can extract new learnings from an already-lived experience, simply by reflecting on that experience as a different person to the one that lived it the first time around.

In that way, the past transcends the past; it enters the present and is with you into the future.

And, through that transcendence, no-one is ever truly gone.

That is what Morrie was talking about.

I will always be with you and you will always be with me, through the experiences we've shared, the love that we hold and the memories we've made.

If I'm still around when you read this, then let's make a few more.

If I'm not, know that every part of who I am lives on inside you and, because of that, you'll never be alone.

Don't rationalise it; know it.

Death ends a life, not a relationship.

All my love, forever,

Dad/dy xx