Just Send the Text

Do you believe in intuition? Or that there is an energy out there that prompts us to do stuff? I do.

A few years ago, we were living in Barcelona and things with work weren’t going great (financially speaking). There were weeks we were barely scraping by…hoping to find a Euro in the couch to buy a baguette to go with lentil soup. One day we were walking to meet a friend in our local spot. We always walked the same way to the cafe, but on this day I felt this inkling to walk a different way. As we were walking down a street that we never walked down I noticed a stack of books out in the trash.

When I got close enough, I could see they were the Spanish version of the Spiderman comic book series…and there were over 100 comic books. I picked up the stack of comic books, put them in my kid’s stroller, and took them to a comic book shop to see what they would offer for them. The store gave me 250€ (around $300 at the time) for the ‘trash’ I had just found…more than enough money for groceries for the month.

What if I had ignored the idea of walking down this other street and just gone the ‘tried and true’ way? I would have missed this serendipitous moment….and had to figure out another way to get groceries 🙂

I believe people cross our minds for a reason. Maybe it’s to reach out to them? Maybe it’s simply to take a moment to send them good thoughts (aka prayers)? Whatever it is, I think we as men need to rediscover the value of reaching out to other guys with just a simple gesture of kindness and remembrance. We may think it doesn’t matter…or that the other guy won’t care. Or worse, think we’re weird and reject our attempt at connection. But I can assure you that most men would appreciate knowing that they matter. That they are thought of. That a connection is made in a world where good and real connection has often been replaced by a like on post…or worse, by fear or apathy.

So the next time get the feeling to reach out to an old friend, a neighbor, or a new dad you may have just met…just send the text.

The vision of Every Dad Project is to be a community where men can make and build meaningful connections over shared experiences as dads. Our online community is beginning to take place and the long-term hope is that it will be a place where dads from around the world have access to the experience, wisdom, failures, and success of a global community.