Family Vacation Week...Over and OUT!

This blog posting may be up for more than a week before I am able to post the next one.

I head out this upcoming Tuesday for a family vacation trip.

Taking a vacation is not an easy thing when you run a small consultancy business. It’s hard for the work-a-holic/entrepreneur/ADHD to let go of the workplace in today’s virtual office 24/7 world.

But then again, we all need the time to simply “let go” and re-charge.

I leave on Wednesday for Seabrook Island, South Carolina. It’s an island that once was owned by the Episcopal Church. About a third of the island was sold and now contains cottages and single-family homes.

The other two-thirds of the island is protected as an “environmental preserve.”

Back about 25 years ago, my family purchased a small cluster cottage on Seabrook.

It was a place where my family would come together and hang.

We had a lot of great times on the island and I must admit, that some of my best ideas gelled there while walking on the beach in which it was just the tide and I.

I wish that more of my co-horts and clients took time to do things like walking the beach and letting ideas get in rhythm with the tide.

A couple of years ago, my parents sold it, but we are able to lease another place right around the corner from our old cottage.

Family time together is also important…especially when it is cross-generational.

All of my immediate family is gathering down there this week.

Events like this certainly reinforce the whole idea of family values.

The group gathering will include my father who turns 80 years old this year, my mother who is in her mid-70s, my sister, her partner, my 2 year old niece, my adopted uncle, his adopted son and me.

This past week, the California Supreme Court overturned the vote on banning Gay marriage.

Whatever your thoughts of marriage and gay rights might be, it was interesting watching those who celebrated and those who vowed to reverse the ruling with a state constitutional amendment.

Those seeking the state constitutional amendment are passionate about preserving their definition that marriage and family values center on a conventional husband, wife and kids.

Kind of like the “Leave it to Beaver” family portrait fifty years ago!

There is no debate that the family structure is a cultural icon that shapes how individuals relate with one another and the world around them.

Since my sister and her partner adopted my niece Thea, I have watched my parents celebrate their time together.

Thea, who just turned 2 years old, is pretty cool and spending time with her actually makes the right side of my brain tick.

Kids are cool because they have no real barriers that contain their great viewpoint of the world and the issues it presents.

Uncle Norm is pretty cool too. He never got married, but raised three adopted sons.

He adopted my “cousin” Chai while he was stationed in Vietnam. He raised Chai in Panama post-war.

I share all of this because the stereotypes and target audience labels so often used in marketing strategy, are not only generic, but archaic.

I hope that when Thea grows up, I am still around.

She will have seen a perspective of life that will be unique.

Even though she is only two years old, I can already tell that she is one smart cookie.

Thea is going to be successful. She is smart, she has been raised on the truest form of “family-values” and she already understands that thinking outside the box is not only okay, but the really cool thing to do!

Hopefully as you read this, she, my parents, her moms, my uncle, my cousin and me will be building some very cool sand castles on the beach!