For my birthday this year, my dad gifted me a dirty bottle of water. Not kidding.
In the past he’s gifted me: a first aid kit, pepper spray, an encyclopedia, a key chain, dedicated a book he wrote to me, etc. good ol dad gifts.
He told me this years gift was extra special as no money could possibly buy it: a valuable life lesson. A shaken dirty bottle of water symbolizes life when you’re flustered. Everything appears dirty. But when the mind settles, dirt only represents less than 10% of the bottle. It’s important to maintain perspective.
Later that weekend I took the bottle to the ocean and poured it back in - sharing a lesson with him in the process: “You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in a drop.”
In effect, I one-upped his cliche 😌 the point of this post is that I am very obviously the child of this man.