I often wrote to my sons when they were tiny. I had created their Gmail accounts before they were born and would post them letters whenever I came across something interesting, inspiring or worth sharing. Nowadays WhatsApp has taken the load though, in my opinion, an email is always a better way to share memories. At times I record my thoughts using a voice recorder on my cell phone and upload the file to their emails. Parents voice and words are and will always be the comforting go to emails when children feel lonely, sad, angry, depressed or dejected. I will one day post all those letters too with their permission.
I am going to share the jewel called
The Boron Letters that I stumbled upon on Amazon. It’s a book of letters written by a father to his son. Buy the book to cut the wait of the next letter that I will post
I am writing the whole letter here for you parents to write inspiring letters to your own children.
Chapter 1
Tuesday, 5:41 p.m.
June 12, 1984
Dear Bond,
This letter is going to be the first in a long series of letters in which I will attempt to communicate to you a lot of the important things I have learned in the last 46 years.
I am going to try to teach you what I have learned about selling by mail, getting and staying healthy, how to get along with people, and, in general, how to have a good life without getting yourself all screwed up. There will also be stuff about sex, drugs and rock and roll! I’m going to try to write to you every day of the week (except Sunday) and spend about one hour on each letter. That way, by the time I get out of here we should have covered a lot of ground.
Also, I intend to reread these letters myself after I am finished and use them as source material for a book I have wanted to write for a long time. The book, unless I come up with a better title, will be called:
How To Be Your Own Messiah
These letters will ramble around somewhat. I’m going to try to keep the flow going so I am not going to slow down to edit these letters and, therefore, don’t expect them to be as precisely written as my ads and other writings.
Anyway, let’s get started. As you know, today is my birthday and, strange as it may seem, it hasn’t been a bad one under the circumstances. For one thing I got your birthday letter and the cards your Mom sent me and, for another, today is the first day I was able to run “the hill” non-stop. Being able to do that really made me feel good. The hill is a real son of a gun. It is very steep and, by my calculations, it is about 8/10 of a mile. I went around the hill 5 times for a total of 4 miles and, as I said, on one of those circuits (the third one), I did it running (actually it was more of a slow jog) non-stop.
You know what? When I came in here, just three weeks ago, it was hard for me just to walk once around that darn hill. And, before I am finished, I’ll bet you I can run around that hill ten times (8 miles) without stopping.
Well, anyway, this all leads me to the first and most important thing I want to write about which is improving and maintaining your health and physical fitness. I’ll have a lot more to say about this subject later but today I just want to “warm up” a little bit and tell you a few good ideas that you can start using everyday. The first thing I want to talk about is “road work”. Road work is walking, jogging and running. And, in my opinion, you should do about one hour of road work everyday of the week except Sunday. I believe the best time to do your road work is right after you get out of bed.
In fact, in my opinion, the best groove to get into is get out of bed, (early) wash your face, brush your teeth, use the bathroom, etc., and then, eat a piece of fruit (I think a banana is the best) and then hit the street! That’s it. Just get out that front door and start moving. Walk, run, jog. Keep moving for about 1/2 hour and then turn around and come back. You know, I really do believe this is the very best way in the world to start the day. It cleans you out, it settles you down and it gives you a nice glow that will stay with you throughout the day. It will also make you more clearheaded and improve the quality of your thinking. The benefits are enormous and, believe me, if you start doing this right away (like the day after you get this letter!) it won’t be long at all till you become positively addicted to your early morning workout.
By the way, this addiction is not just psychological. It is a real honest-to-God drug addiction. But don’t let that scare you. This is what’s known as a positive addiction. A positive addiction is simply being addicted to something (like exercise) that improves the quality of your life. A negative addiction, on the other hand, is being addicted to something (like cigarettes) that lowers the quality of your life. What happens when you do road work is that, after about forty minutes, your brain begins to secrete what some people refer to as “survival chemicals”. The names of these chemicals, as far as I know, are beta endorphins and norephinphrine. Some people say these chemicals are 200 times stronger than morphine and, in my opinion, the feeling you get is sort of like a good drug high except that the “high” is not artificial and you become zestful rather than speedy and, unlike a drug high, this is a high that is good for you.
If I seem to be going on and on about this it is because it is so important and it is something you can do right away! And, actually, of everything I have learned about in my entire life, this stuff about doing road work the first thing in the morning is very close to being the most important thing of all.
So I really hope you get started on this morning road work program as soon as you get this letter and I also hope it becomes a habit for all the rest of your life.
I Love You and Good Luck!
Dad
P.S. Please get me a copy of “The Joy of Running” by Theodore Kostrubala.
Message learned from this letter:
The importance of getting up early, walking or running or exercising and keeping away from drugs.
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