What can we say about Addison Jack Chandler?
I started writing letters to you when you were eight years old. We have explored quite a few topics. Your interest in karate and baseball. My hope to establish a deeper relationship with you through letters, like people did for most of time – until email showed up. For example, I wrote to you and your cousins about how you are connected to the old west through a great, great, great grandfather, who was authentically a town marshall, in two states and three cities, more of less in the 1880’s. I shared with you the SEAL Commander’s speech, and the ten really important points he sought to make, and was thrilled when I saw you last Christmas and you told me that this was the first thing you wanted to talk about. You may not have noticed the huge smile on my face. Recently, this year, I wrote to you about choices, and how profoundly your choices affect your life, and how the best people accept responsibility for their choices, good and bad. And once, shortly after the celebration for Adam’s growth to adulthood, at your age now, I wrote to you on March 5, 2014, and shared with you – and also your cousins – what the people at Google were describing as the traits they look for in new team members: leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability, and loving to learn and re-learn.
At your party, your friends and family will say how cool you are, how talented, how funny, how kind – and yes, you are surely all of those things. In addition, I have this sense that you love to learn. I have this feeling that you are not always thinking about yourself, that even at such a young age, you have a humble streak. I get the sense that you like to work with people, to collaborate, to adapt to the needs and wants of others, as you wish them to adapt to yours. Given these traits, you have the ability to be a great leader. And it is not too soon to recognize that. For while the world needs good people, and funny people, it desperately needs good leaders. And natural leaders make careful choices about the situations that demand their leadership. And people who want to lead will not always find the path easy. It is almost more of a calling, than something you select.
So welcome to adulthood, dear Addie, and may your journey forward be magnificent.
Debi joins me in wishing you a very happy birthday.
Love,
Debi and Jack
