Best Decade Ever!
Best Decade Ever! (Started 25 October 2019, completed 22 April 2023)
I started writing this story as I returned home from my deployment to Iraq. This week on my travels to/from Ecuador I finally finished it…
Towards the end of my deployment I finished an Air War College course in which the final project consisted of an 8-page paper outlining my Professional Developmentt Plan. This plan outlined my personal and professional short, mid, and long-term goals. Then as I waited for the airport shuttle to begin my long trip home someone asked me if I accomplished all my deployment goals. All this left me thinking a lot about goals.
My Grandpa Nielsen was an avid goal goal setter. I remember him telling me that when he turned 70 years old, he decided to make the next ten years the best years of his life. As a youngster I thought that was crazy! What possible goals could he focus on? By that time he and Grandma Nielsen had raised a beautiful family which was already over 100 members strong. They had built one of the best civil engineering companies in Utah. They had served missions separately (Norway and Eastern States) and together (Panama/Costa Rica and Puerto Rico). But there Grandpa Nielsen was in 1993 recounting to me how his goal 10 years previously had helped shape his “Best Decade Ever”.
So Grandpa Nielsen set after his goals. I know only a small part of my grandpa’s efforts over those years. But I know his goal to become a better runner left me with wonderful memories of him taking us boys running in our basketball shoes (or work boots) to the railroad tracks 2.5 miles away and back, leaving us with the sense of accomplishment those feats bring to young boys. I also know his and Grandma Nielsen’s 1986 mission to serve for 18 months as missionaries in the Buenos Aires Argentina temple expanded their already wonderful legacy of missionary service. By working on these and many other goals, Grandpa Nielsen felt like he had achieved his big goal of making it the best decade ever.
At the time I started writing this story, Megan was 10 years old, so I wished her a happy decade and acknowledged some of the great things Megan had accomplished in those ten years; she learned to walk, talk, read, write, eat solid food, use the restroom, do math, and thousands of other amazing things.
Now I question each of us, what have we have done over the past ten years?
To be honest, I am amazed and proud of what each of you has accomplished. Maybe even more than poses and practical jokes, I am very grateful for the way each of you has worked to develop your individual talents, push through difficult circumstances, and be examples and friends to others.
Kelsey, Caleb, and Megan exemplified their dedication to goals during this week’s challenge of competing at over 9000 feet above sea level. I loved seeing you push to do your very best. You were great competitors and great sports.
Maybe hard work is part of the secret. Missions are very hard, yet I have often heard return missionaries refer to their mission as the “best years” of their life. April and Sydney have now also experienced the hard work and the joys of missionary service. I am grateful for my mission, but I am also grateful it did not remain the best time of my life for long. As I tell all returned missionaries, and really each of us in whatever stage of life we are, if we move forward in faith “the best is yet to come”!
So maybe the right question for you as you push through adolescence, and for Mom and I as we pass through “middlescence”, isn’t what we have done in the past, but what we will do in the future.
Love always,
Dad
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