i always knew you were crazy about me or the steve jobs effect

!4 months ago I held my dad's hand as he took his last breath.  Those last days with him were emotional and real and scary and slow. And there was no question I would be there for every one of them. One of the last things I did in those sacred moments was to thank my dad for giving me the greatest gift a parent can give a child - I always knew he was crazy about me. 

His love was his greatest gift to the world.  He didn't invent anything, he wasn't the icon of huge company and the world press did not take note of his death.

He was no Steve Jobs. And I am profoundly grateful for that.

It seems that now that the initial reaction has passed and people have had a chance to read the biograhy of Jobs and see what was sacrificed on the altar of his success, they are thinking about their own lives. And I am profoundly grateful for that.

I believe the things that will really change this planet for the better are going to come about when we remember to love. Cause love is the ultimate launching pad, and your most successful launch should always be your children.

Here are some examples of dads remembering to love:

For a long time, work was my only thing. I worked evenings, weekends, and Christmas. At those rare times when I wasn’t at work in body, I was there in spirit, unable to speak or think of much else. I wanted so badly to climb the mountain that I stopped asking why I was doing it.

I admire Steve for the mountains he climbed. At the same time, I wonder if he missed the whole point, becoming the John Henry of our time. He won the race, but at what cost?

Me? I may turn out to be a failure in business, but I refuse to fail my kids.

From the blog Deliberatism

Startup life is hard on families. We just welcomed two new members into our family, and running as fast as you can isn't sustainable for parents of multiple small children. The death of Steve Jobs, and his subsequent posthumous biography, highlighted the risks for a lot of folks...You may have more discipline than I do. But for me, the mission is everything; I'm downright religious about it. Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange have been wildly successful, but I finally realized that success at the cost of my children is not success. It is failure.

From Jeff Atwood

In the last several years, the company has been successful enough to generate a substantial amount of capital. And with it, I have been fortunate to bring in people with great talent. And so I started thinking of all the amazing things we would do. I would put in crazy hours to do it, of course, but we would go and do amazing things.

Then Steve Jobs died.

And suddenly I realized something. What is the objective here? My oldest child just turned 15. My other two are no longer little either.  And I have been missing out on them. And my wife.

For all the success and amazing accomplishments of Steve Jobs, in the end, nothing could save him. Death can come at any time.  And I realized that if I found myself on death’s door, I would regret deeply not having spent more time with  my kids when they were…well, kids. 

From the blog JoeUser.com

All the above examples I found on Jason Kottke's blog:

Since Jobs died, I've been pushing a little less hard in that direction.

Four is hardly a trend but it is interesting that the death and biography of the greatest businessman of our generation -- someone who was responsible for so many world-changing products and ideas, who shaped our world through sheer force of will & imagination, etc. etc. -- is inspiring some people to turn away from the lifestyle & choices that made Jobs so successful & inspiring in the public sphere and to attempt the path that Jobs did not.

And then this morning I read Jonathan Fields' post about Entreporn:

I’m not any better than anyone else. I don’t live anywhere near a charmed existence. I have bills to pay, struggles, emotions and challenges on many levels. I work hard. Really hard. But I work even harder to align my time and energy with what I claim to hold dear in life.

Because I can always start a new company, but I can never relive moments in the lives of my wife and daughter.

I'm seeing more dads like this and fewer dads like this.

I'm declaring it a movement.  And I'm saying my dad started it.