Today’s inspiration honors my father’s upcoming birthday and recounts a story that makes me smile and shake my head with gratitude. I’m so lucky to have had such a positive force in my life! From Morning Fuel: August 26 entry. This one is for you, Dad!

It was 9:15 one Saturday night. I knew if I wanted to talk to Mom and Dad I would need to make my call right then, or I would not make their bedtime curfew. Mom answered on the first ring and Dad joined in the conversation.

They asked about my dinner party that was in progress. I’d gathered some friends together for a cookout, many of whom Mom and Dad knew from earlier visits to Baltimore. “How’s so and so?” they asked. “Tell her I said hello.” They loved to plug into my world.

“And how’s your ice cream?” Dad inquired. During their last visit, I had purchased an ice cream maker and we had made some delicious ice cream together.

“Well,” I began, “I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, but it has been churning for three and a half hours and it is still soup!”

Without skipping a beat, he said, “You can always serve milkshakes!”

I had to laugh and shake my head. Milkshakes indeed.

He didn’t ask if I had used enough ice.

He didn’t ask if I had changed the recipe.

He didn’t ask if I used the right rock salt.

He just made a helpful suggestion of how to use what I had to its best advantage.

That was his gift, to see the possibilities. To assess right then and there whatever was at hand—an issue, a person, a situation—and find a positive spin.

Even though a critique may be in order, moving forward with a positive approach was always his lead. It was almost an automatic response with him. If you watched him carefully you could almost see the sifting and sorting in his steady, sea-blue gaze as he allowed only the most positive of possibilities to float to the top of his mind.

Seek the possibilities within the parameters of the present. – Dr. R.F. Smith, Jr.

Seek the possibilities within the parameters of the present, Dad taught me with his “milkshake method” of looking at life. Success and failure are no more or less than a matter of perspective, I learned.

Dad and Becky 1996 (six months before paralysis)

Happy Birthday, Dad! Thanks for your timeless lessons that continue to inspire me.

P. S. Last day for the BookBub feature and $0.99 e-book pricing.