H
onor your father and mother. This has been passed down for a few thousand years, so it must be good advice. Here’s how it works.
Leon White was an all-conference linebacker for the Brigham Young University Cougars, a team that won the national championship in 1985. In the Holiday Bowl that year, Leon White was a one-man wrecking crew, making bone-jarring tackles, sacking the quarterback and intercepting passes. Leon played better than he had ever played before. The crowd went wild.
But Leon White wasn’t playing for the crowds or the glory. He was playing for his dad who was watching the game from the sidelines on the stretcher. Both of them knew this was the last game he would ever watch Leon play.
Between defensive sets Leon would hustle over and ask, “Dad, are you having a good time?” And was he ever.
His dad never stopped talking about that game or about his son right up until the moment he died from cancer a few days later.
Leon played a great game, but his father wasn’t proud of him because he was a great linebacker. He was proud because Leon was a great man and son who made his parents proud. If we could all be like Leon, many of the problems that exist in society today would disappear.
If the relationship between you and your parents, or you and your offspring, needs some fixing, work on it. It’s a worthwhile investment of time and energy.