MODERN DAD | By Jon Show

June 13. When I need to think, or when I’m searching for an answer to a problem, I go outside and look around.

When I was a kid I would lay down in the grass and look at the clouds. I’d sit in a tree and look at the leaves blow. I’d sit on the beach and stare at the ocean waves or walk to the dock and listen to the silence of the lake.

These days I spend a lot of time listening to the creek.

Some answers come quickly and others take longer.

I don’t know if the clouds or trees or the water are what holds the answers I’m looking for, or if the answers are already in my head. I’ve never figured that part out.

I also know my brain doesn’t work like others and I don’t know why. I’m not saying it’s better. It’s probably worse.

It’s definitely different. Certainly a little weird. But as I say every year in this column – weird is good and normal is boring.

Oh well. On to my annual Father’s Day column with advice that my kids neither read nor heed, but I’m hopeful that someday they will.

Eyes on the Prize

The world is paying a lot less attention to you than you think it is. Being comfortable in your own skin is a key to life. The sooner you learn not to care what others think, the better off you’ll be.

It’s called self-confidence for a reason so don’t wait around for someone else to give it to you and don’t allow someone else to take it away.

Be kind to those who deserve it – which is everyone until you recognize that someone doesn’t deserve it. Don’t be mean to those people either, just stay away from them.

Irritating your mother is so much fun. Please know that I do it because I love her, even though she hates it. I hope you get to experience something similar when you get married. She just got irritated when she read this and even that makes me giggle.

Everyone makes mistakes and everyone has bad days. Those don’t define you. How you react is what defines you.

Some kids are raised to be fed in terms of wants and desires – I don’t believe in that. Some kids are raised starving – I would never do that to you. But you are both being raised to be hungry. Fed people wake up full. Hungry people wake up and go looking for dinner.

I ripped this off from an Indian guru. When all eight billion of us go to bed tonight, based on the average death rate, 250,000 of us won’t wake up. You don’t have to throw yourself a dance party every morning but if winning the lottery by merely waking up doesn’t put a smile on your face then you’ve lost perspective.

On a related note, I say it here every year. Wake up in the morning, put two feet on the ground. And go. Your attitude and effort are the only things you can control in this life. I repeat it every year because it’s the only real piece of life advice that matters.

Window Pain

If you ever own a car with tinted windows, don’t wave at people and later ask why they didn’t wave back. They can’t see you waving. You have tinted windows.

The most important mantra you can live by is, “It is what it is.” It doesn’t mean you don’t strive for better, or regret your actions, or settle for less than you deserve. But things happen – good and bad. Enjoy or mourn the moment but at the end of the day, it is what it is. Tomorrow’s a new day.

Don’t grow up to be the mean old man on the street who’s annoyed by kids. The sound and sight of kids playing, fighting or doing whatever is the soundtrack of life’s regeneration. A person who’s annoyed by kids is broken on the inside.

Find the thing that you can’t live without and never let it go. Feed your fever. Nurture it and protect it and don’t let others influence it. I don’t fish because I like fishing. I fish because I have to.

I hope someday you get to live in a home with someone who doesn’t clean their bedroom and pees on the toilet seat so you know how annoying it is to listen to all the women constantly complain about it.

It’s important to learn how to change a tire or an electrical outlet; how to paint a wall and work a saw; do laundry, cook food and unclog a sink. I don’t care if you can pay others to do it.

Boys and girls are a waste of time in your teenage years. Hang out with your friends and make memories that you’ll retell forever. No one ever sits around and tells stories about the times they hung out with their girlfriend or boyfriend in high school.

A dog is the only thing you will ever come across in your life that is elated to see you 100 percent of the time. Think about that the next time you brush off Lightning on the way in the house.

Being the best at something isn’t important. Trying your hardest is. Maybe you try so hard at something you become the best? Or maybe you just get okay at it? The journey matters. The result does not.

When you lose sight of that, and you will lose sight of that from time to time, and you need answers to a problem, maybe try reading one of these annual Father’s Day columns.

Or maybe just go outside and look at the clouds or the trees or listen to the water.

If the answer isn’t in here, then it’s out there somewhere.

• Father’s Day is June 15

Jon Show lives in Robbins Park with his wife, who he calls “The Mother of Dragons.” Their 16-year-old son is “Future Man” and their 11-year-old daughter is “The Blonde Bomber.” Their dog is actually named Lightning.