Excerpted from the book “Odditude” released in the Spring of 2007 by HCI Publishing

I was lucky.  I had wonderful parents.  They had an agreement that they would never go to bed mad at one another.  Made it rather tough on us kids.  Not easy talking to someone who hasn’t slept in fourteen years.

Each was odd, which is why they were great parents.

One of the nicest things about living in my house was my grandfather lived with us.  Mar grandfather was a teacher.  He drove a bus for the city of Chicago … but he did that for the money … he was a teacher.  The most vital lesson he ever taught me was the importance, the excitement, the beauty, the challenge of being ODD.

If it was your second time on the bus, my grandfather knew your name … the name of your husband or wife … your children … where you worked … where you lived.  He knew you.  People would actually pass up other buses to get on his because it was like a moving party.  I had people come up to me thirty years later and say, “I remember your grandfather.  I used to ride his bus. He was the highlight of my day.”

“The highlight of my day.”  What a wonderful way to be remembered and here’s a man they met for only a few moments.  Why?  Because he lived what he believed and he believed that life is a gift and, as a gift, it’s meant to be enjoyed.  This is supposed to be fun.

We are all teachers all the time especially when we are around young minds.

I learned that a number of years ago when my older daughter was three.  One morning, I planned on going to the cleaners.  But when I walked through the kitchen to the back porch I saw that is was raining.  Even though the cleaner was only a block away, my wife’s car was in the driveway so I thought I’d borrow it.

But I must have lost my mind momentarily because I did not ask my wife’s permission first.  I just presumed she wasn’t going anywhere in the next seventy five seconds.

But, sure enough, when I pulled back into the driveway, there was my wife standing on the back porch.  Her arms were folded and her foot was tapping.  My three year old daughter was standing next to her.  Her arms were folded.  Her foot was tapping.  As I got out of the car, my daughter sweetly said to me, “Daddy, did it ever occur to you to take your own damn car?”

Looking back, I realize my grandfather’s strongest belief was that to live a happy life, you had to first be true to your yourself.  In a world of Evens, you had to be ODD.

Sitting at the kitchen table with my grandfather, we were beginning to put together a new puzzle.  All the pieces were spread out in front of us.  He asked me, “You know what I love about puzzles?” but he didn’t wait for my reply.  He held up a piece.  “Each one of these is different.  But put them all together in just the right way and they make a beautiful picture.”

“Same is true of people.  Each one is different…off… but if any two pieces are alike, you no longer have a puzzle that is a beautiful picture waiting to happen.  You just have a pile of useless pieces.”

ODD was not a negative work to my grandfather.  Just the opposite.  He understood that trying to be like everyone else was poison.  My grandfather would often say, “Look within you and discover your Wizard of ODD.”

My grandfather believed that he, and everyone else on this planet, was one-of-a kind.  His belief gave him a lust for living that enveloped everyone around him.  There was an honesty about him that made you feel excited about being alive.  You wanted to be around my grandfather because, when you were, you felt better about life.  You felt better about yourself.

My grandfather was a very religious man.  One day, when my brother and I were in out teens, acting like jerks, he sat us down at the kitchen table and took out the Bible.  My grandfather said, “The beauty of the scriptures is not so much what is written but what is read.”  He then read the passage where Abraham is asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac.  When my grandfather finished reading, he commented.  “Now, if you know how to read the scriptures, you realize that Isaac was twelve years old or younger.”

I asked, “Where does it say that?”

“Well,” said my grandfather, “If he had been a teenager, then it wouldn’t have been a sacrifice.”

My grandfather believed in living a life of total joy - loving who you are; loving what you do.  He would often say, “Do what you love and you’ll be known as a smart person.  But, sometimes, life doesn’t give you that opportunity.  Then you must learn to love what you do and you’ll be known as a wise person.  But if you can do neither - if you can’t do what you love or learn to love what you do - then so something else.  Life is too precious to waste even a moment of it.”

BECOMING YOUR WIZARD OF ODD:  Love who you are.  Love what you do.  Or do something else.

BEING A WIZARD TO OTHERS:  Be the highlight of everyone’s day.

Comments

Add New

Write comment
Name:
Email:
Website:
Title:

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.26

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."