The Golf Cart That Almost Ended Everything
"Hey, why don't you jump out? I think I can make it without the extra weight."
Those words nearly cost me my marriage.
Picture this: A lifted golf cart. A 12-foot hill. My wife sitting beside me. And me, the efficiency expert, calculating weight distribution instead of reading the room.
She didn't get out to help. She got out to walk home. Alone.
The original golf cart from the hill story.
I made it to the top of that hill—by myself. Which, it turned out, was exactly the problem. I'd optimized my way to the summit and lost the only person worth sharing the view with.
The lesson? You can optimize everything except what matters. The goal wasn't getting to the top of the hill. The goal was to ride together.
Sometimes the most efficient path leads you exactly where you don't want to be: alone at the top.
We are here to raise the next generation. I love the line from Intersteller, “After you kids came along, your mom, she said something to me I never quite understood. She said, "Now, we are just here to be memories for our kids. I think now I understand what she meant. Once you are a parent, you are the ghost of your children’s future.”
Champions!
"At the top of every hill you climb alone, you'll find the same thing: Nobody to share the view with."— The Fourth Generation Formula
The Talent Show Test
Mason's graduation from homeschool co-op. The moment I stood on stage with no notes, heart hammering, trying to tell my son how proud I am—and somehow finding the words.
The real test came at our homeschool co-op talent show. All the graduates were to go on stage, and their parents would speak about them in front of the audience. As I sat down, Jackie leaned over: "Oh, by the way, you'll need to speak about Mason. In front of everyone."
My brain short-circuited. Other parents walked up with pages of notes, some crying as they talked about their graduates. And there I am, frantically searching my phone's notes app, desperate for anything I could use. I wanted Mason to know I loved him and was proud, but my mind was blank and my heart was in my throat.
I stood there with no notes, Mason on stage watching me, heart hammering, face calm. I started talking about him—his strengths, his determination, all the ways he makes me intensely proud. Real stuff. Specific stuff.
Honestly? I don't remember most of it. I was concentrating so hard on looking comfortable that the words just... happened. But Mason heard them, and that's what mattered.
The Vulcan had learned to feel. Or maybe the feelings were always there—they'd just been buried under efficiency protocols and optimization algorithms.
Side note, if you feel like you're not ready to have kids, you never will be. You will always feel that way. You just have to decide you want them more than you want to be comfortable.
The 50-Foot Handshake That Changed Everything "In a world of disconnect, just being what a normal person was a few decades ago makes you stand out today." I once watched a man walk 50 feet across a gymnasium with his hand extended for a handshake.
![[CHAPTER_5_SUPPORTING_IMAGE_ALT]](/assets/Illustations/5 50_Foot.png)
Connection compounds in ways optimization never could. Every optimization has a cost—usually paid by the people who matter most. At the top of every hill you climb alone, you'll find the same thing: Nobody to share the view with.