Love Conquers All | #MyFridayStory No. 305

When faced with any more than one or two options, I say, “Let’s open a spreadsheet!”

I grew up sharing a bedroom with my brother, who was 11 years my senior. For reasons I’ll never fully understand, he took me under his wing and loved me more than I deserved. So, when I was in Grade 1 at 6 years old, he was in his final year in high school. After high school, he completed his nine months of National Service in the army, graduating top of his class as a full lieutenant.

My Brother’s love for learning new technologies—and as an early adopter of anything that could make life easier—he latched onto the first sign of a home computer. He bought an Apple II in 1977 and by 1980 had upgraded to the Apple IIe—with extended memory, a mouse and VisiCalc installed! This early spreadsheet would set the foundation for every future advancement.

Accountants and financial types were in heaven. For decades to come, large amounts of numbers could be manipulated and sorted to reveal magical results.

Thanks to my Brother, I learned how to use technology to make my life simpler and easier. There isn't an advancement in computers and computing power that my Brother didn’t grab first from the shelf for most of the rest of his life.

This entire journey I shared with him until he died a few years ago.

I wondered what word or topic features most in #MyFridayStory's. I extracted the data from the stories and created a spreadsheet. I ranked and ordered the most used words and themes. Reading came out on top with 125 features. Love was the thing 120 times. Third was Learning with 80 mentions or tags.

What surprised me is that love wasn’t first.

I thought about my need to create a list, and my Brother came to mind. I had to smile at how similar we are—all because he made it so. He passed on every good habit and trait he had ever learned in his life to me. He suffered the hard yards first, to make my learning curve lighter. He did this to make my life easier. There isn’t an area of my life where my Brother didn’t try to teach and guide me to be a better person.

The theologian, the minister, the lieutenant, the Chaplain, the programmer, the computer wizard, the well of knowledge on all topics in the known world, the mentor, the father, the Grand-Dad-Dad, the warm and loving husband, the uncle, the friend, and my older Brother and Second Dad—oozed love. It occurred to me the top three were his greatest gifts to me. My Brother taught me to love reading and to love learning. But most of all, my Brother taught me to love.

Here are the top ten featured themes:

• Reading            125
• Love                 120
• Learning            80
• Generosity        76
• God                  49
• Kindness           48
• Listening           36
• Vulnerability      23
• Prejudice           20
• Bias                  15

Have an awesome weekend and please remember to be generous! 😄

As always, thanks for reading 🙏

To receive #MyFridayStory every week, please join any Tribe below:

• Via Email
• Via LinkedIn Groups
• Via LinkedIn Newsletter
• Medium.com
• WhatsApp Broadcast List — Leave a DM with your Mobile Number to be added.