The hardest decision I have ever had to make.

How to happily do something you might not want to do.

Dean Dwyer

Jul 22, 2024

Welcome to the 202nd consecutive edition of the newsletter.

Today’s post is pretty personal.

So let’s jump right to it.

Yesterday I made a really hard decision.

But before I share that, let me give you some backstory.

I have been visiting my mom and dad here in Sudbury for the past 3 weeks.

They are no longer married, but they remain good friends.

Usually, I bounce back and forth spending equal time at both places.

But I have spent all but one night living at my dads.

He is 83 and is experiencing some challenges that come with age and not being able to drive anymore.

I have been looking into the best solutions to help him deal with those.

But my dad is a unique character and I realized that the solutions that do exist and work for many others won’t work for him.

But I do know of one that would work very well.

If I move in with him.

But there is only one problem.

I love Toronto. I love where I live. I love my neighbourhood. I love the life I have there.

But yesterday I gave notice to my friend and landlord that I would be leaving my apartment of 23 years on September 15th, 2024 to officially move in with my dad.

This is all rather sudden, and not something I had ever imagined happening.

I thought I would share 7 ways I’m thinking about this situation.

1/ I’m a believer that you can’t experience happiness doing something you don’t want to do.

While this is not something I had anticipated, I know I will find a way to fall in love with my decision.

Just like I found a way to fall in love with taking refined sugars out of my diet.

It’s all about the mindsets I choose to develop.

I choose to see this as a wonderful new adventure that will yield beautiful exotic fruit.

2/ I don’t believe in sacrifice.

I’m not sacrificing my life to help improve the quality of my dad’s.

I know I can still do everything I want to do and become everything I want to become while simultaneously attending to the things I know will improve the quality of his life.

I will definitely need to be more organized and productive with the time I have, but I can have the best of both worlds.

3/ I will need to work hard to carve out Dean time.

One thing about being single is that I had LOTS of time to myself.

Dean loves his Dean time.

I will need to work hard under this new arrangement, to carve out that time.

I won’t get nearly as much as I had before, but quite frankly, I had too much of it.

This will force me to find my Dean Time sweet spot.

4/ I will focus on the wins this will lead to.

Most things in life boil down to how we choose to see things. I can either choose to focus on what I am giving up or what I am going to gain.

I choose the latter.

I will get to further build my relationship with my dad
I will be able to spend more quality time with my mom
I will also be able to spend more time with my sister and her 3 children
I will be able to connect more deeply with my cousins who are here
I will be able to reconnect with high school friends who are here
I believe my business will be better
I think I will be much more productive
I think I will be more creative
It will open up new possibilities that I could never have imagined
I will be more social → I tend to isolate myself
It will make my relationships with my Toronto area friends stronger as I will work harder to stay connected with them

I believe the wins will be exponentially more impactful than any “losses” I might experience.

5/ I will use this opportunity to enhance my personal growth.

By placing myself in a situation I really haven’t been in for the past 35 years, I will discover all kinds of new things about myself.

And not everything I uncover is going to be great.

But I am eager to be better than I am today, and this situation will accelerate those growth opportunities.

6/ I will focus on gratitude.

I’m lucky I can do this. Not everyone can. I am not married. I don’t have kids — that I know of (really Dean?? You had to go there??)

And I am built for this. Not everyone is.

7/ I will have no regrets.

Toronto will always be there. My father won’t. I don’t want to look back on my life and know I could have made a difference and chose not to.

So what’s in this for you?

The main thing I am hoping you take from this is that when you make a decision to do something really hard like…

take refined sugars out of your diet
quit alcohol
get married — Falling in love with someone is easy. Falling in love with marriage is hard.
train every day
log your foods

you have to find a way to fall in love with it.

If you don’t, you default to bitterness, and that’s a toxic way to live.

And bitterness doesn’t scale long-term.

But…

Do you know what does scale?

Love.

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading. 🙏

To falling in love with hard things,