The Finest Kind of Gift

Early in my teen years I returned home from school to find an expensive Italian sports car with Montana plates parked in our suburban Maryland driveway. I burst through the front door, convinced that my “real parents” had arrived, and was semi-disappointed to learn that the man and woman I’d known since birth – not these visitors – were indeed my real parents.

By that time I’d developed a semi-unhealthy obsession with fishing, despite the fact that no one in my immediate family had any interest in the sport whatsoever.

Obviously, in the subsequent nearly-forty years that addiction has not abated even slightly, and I’ve often wondered what would have happened had my parents been ardent anglers.

Would my entry into the industry have been easier?

Would I have been a better angler?

Would I have recognized and fed my multispecies traveling fetish earlier?

Or might I have rejected the sport altogether, instead looking to distinguish myself from them?

Upon further reflection, I’ve recognized that while they still can’t tell the difference between a swimbait and a soccer ball, or a largemouth and a lollipop, they gave me something more important than industry-specific knowledge: They encouraged my obsessive side.

Indeed, passion for learning and expertise and immersion is the currency that my family members rely upon. My father, in addition to being a physician, is also a renowned expert on Asian art, with an impressive self-curated collection. My mother has developed an expertise in treating anxiety disorders like agoraphobia and OCD. My brother, in addition to being a partner at one of the most prestigious management consulting firms, also speaks fluent Japanese and has immersed himself in Japanese culture.

Me? I fish. And I write about it. A lot.

It’s not the “what” that binds us so much as the “how much.” I learned from an early age that you were to find your own launch point and then take it to the logical extreme – or, in many cases, far past logical. For that I am thankful, because I believe that if you are forced to cut your own path forward, in the end it’s more meaningful than if you’re handed a map.

While I can’t say that I’m thankful my parents don’t fish – “perplexed” is the more apt description – I am thrilled that they gave me something better. A gift of a hobby or an interest or a profession opens one world to the recipient. Encouraging someone’s passion opens every world to them.