2. What do you enjoy?

3. How much income do you need to feel you are being fairly compensated?

4. How much flexibility do you want in your schedule?

5. How much mental and emotional energy do you want to have left after your paid work is done?

6. How often and for how long do you want to travel out of town?

7. How far are you willing to commute?

8. Is there an upper limit to how many hours you are willing to work per day? Per week?

9. How often are you willing to relocate?

10. How much of time do you want to work from home?

Are you already holding your "plum"? If not, keep your new vision in front of you. What steps can you take today to put your updated "plum" within reach?

(c) 2004 Norma Schmidt, Coach, LLC

My father understood those rules clearly. Dads worked hard and stayed employed, regardless of how menial or mundane job. Dads spent time with their kids. But most importantly, dads offered glimpses into what it meant to be a man and a father—in purest sense of both terms.

In what seems to me to be a smaller way than my dad, I walk precarious tightrope that is "Dad" vs. "Me," always trying to maintain a balance between two. And although my circumstances are very different, importance of task remains unchanged.

Like my father, I try to let my kids know how much I believe in sanctity of this special time in their lives. By offering them my love and support, I hope to give them gift my father gave me—the greatest gift a father can give, really—warm, gentle memories of their childhood. And no matter how difficult their lives may become later on, they’ll always be able to take comfort in those sweet memories, and no one can ever take that gift away.

So here's to my dad, to your dad, and to all dads—men who gave up or postponed their own dreams so that we might reach for ours. Men in whose footprints we tried to step as we struggled through deep snowdrifts of our childhood, marveling at how long a man's stride could be.