“I will become respected,” I vowed to myself.  It was something I could earn, I learned. If I worked hard enough, made enough sacrifices, I could taste the sweet fruit of respect. If five days of hard work could produce good results, what would six do? If six was better yet, then what about seven? If I didn’t rest, I could produce, and delivering value bought me respect.

“I’ll sleep when I die,” a type-A friend of ours joked. They laughed. I pondered.

The joke squirreled its way into my heart. I was 21 and already had tasted the first fruits of my labor. It was sweet. My hard work had earned me esteem from my college professors. Their glowing comments were my drug. Late nights in the library were my payment. 

“Who wants to play?” was the refrain of my school-teacher dad when I was a kid. My sister and I leaped when my dad arrived home from work and joined us for a football game with our neighborhood friends. I was the envy of my friends; everyone loved my dad. He was gentle and kind, and he loved to play.

I discovered something more powerful than love as I entered my twenties: respect. And I grew embarrassed over my father. He wasn’t serious enough.

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