Ross Butler Instagram – On a more personal note, this is a prayer my dad wrote for me on my 7th birthday before he passed away. I have read it every year since and every year it means something different. Every year, I realize more and more how much reading it as a kid as impacted my philosophy as an adult and reminds me how much I still have to work on.  I’ve never been religious. So as a kid, a prayer seemed like a waste of time. And when my dad passed away, I used to think that I had joined a losing game: trying to live up to someone’s standards who is no longer here, someone no longer able to give you their affirmation and approval.  As an adult, I now believe that within each of us lives God, or Allah, or Buddha, or who/whatever you believe in. It took me the better part of my life to realize my dad didn’t write this prayer to bind me to some moral code or to give me a set of rules to live by or to ask God that I obey his guidance. He wrote this prayer as a gift. A gift I could read my entire life and that everytime I read it, it would be a prayer to the part of God inside me, to plead with myself to live to these standards simply because this is the person that I want to be, not for anyone else, not for my dad, not for God. I didn’t have to gain his approval by living to his standards, they were my own. And when I learned this, I realized I wasn’t losing the game anymore. I had already won. And that was the greatest gift a father could give his son. I hope that made sense.