My wife, Lisa, and I are celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary this month and I’m in a reflective mood. Twenty-five years is a long time, it’s a quarter of a century. I’ve spent more than half of my time on this earth as a married man and father (our oldest is a twenty-four year old honeymoon baby). It’s amazing when I stop and think about the last twenty-five years. 

A few of my friends and family had shared on social media a TED talk by Angela Lee Duckworth, Ph.D on the #1 predictor of success, when all other factors had been considered. You can watch the video if you’d like, but to sum it up: it all comes down to resilience, or grit, as she calls it.  

I think it’s fair to start this post off with a simple assumption: we want to be happy in life. Right? I mean, no one wants to go through our 80+ years on this Earth being miserable. God wants us to be happy too! When you love someone, there’s no greater joy than making them laugh, seeing them smile, and knowing they’re doing well.