This is an opinion column

The shadows are growing long at the ballpark, but the sun hasn’t given up yet. I slapped on sunscreen, but I wonder if there’s a point. The redneck is probably genetic. My son is holding down right field for the Athletics by watching a beetle in the grass. In fairness, large insects can be fascinating. Over the years, I’ve worked hard to get where I’m going, but days like this remind me I’m already there.

As a younger man with better hair and fewer body aches, I learned to work. My father explained that I needed to be in school, on a sports field, or employed during the week. My siblings and I sold vegetables from our garden around the neighborhood. We’d pet and house sit. I umpired countless youth baseball games. As I got older, I pitched hay for a local farmer named Bill Primm. I set fence posts and did just about every other odd job he could find. In college, a few buddies and I founded a landscaping company that we ran for several years.

I’m still trying to get all the dust and dirt from the first few decades.

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I married my wife after my first year of law school at the University of Alabama. Shortly thereafter, I turned my blue collar in for a white one in the United States Senate. Rick Dearborn, Senator Jeff Sessions’s Chief of Staff told me that the only difference between me and anyone else in Washington, D.C. would be how hard I worked. That message reinforced everything I’d been taught as a child.

As a result of all that work, I learned the incredible value of earned success at a relatively young age. The feeling is a high better than any drug. I worked even harder. The hours became longer. The work trips stretched my young family to the breaking point. We had ambitious goals that weren’t vain, but they demanded a lot of resources. Try feeding three or four boys at any given meal. It isn’t cheap. I just kept telling myself that I was providing for my family.

It was a noble lie, but it was a lie nonetheless.

I never stopped to think about where we were going as a family. For me, it was the next job, promotion, or accomplishment. I didn’t fully understand the critical importance of raising children well. The feedback loop of professional accolades felt measurably better than my boys smashing my television with a wooden block or “washing” my car with a brick.

Life is so much more than chasing positive feelings.

After nearly losing my family because of my own arrogance and professional focus, I found myself working for Congressman Gary Palmer running the House Republican Policy Committee. As much as he appreciated my policy work, the congressman also expected me to take care of my family. It wasn’t optional. He taught me a lesson I missed in decades of hard work: Who we are matters every bit as much as what we do.

Slowing down long enough for introspection has been the most uncomfortable realization of my life. My “character” wasn’t much more than an insane work ethic paired with a constant need for people to think I was great. When former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush asked people to “please clap” during one of his speeches, I joked about it. He was saying out loud what so many people like me constantly feel inside. I managed to convince myself that folks only liked me for what I could accomplish. They didn’t really care about me as a person.

The funniest thing is that I have three sets of little eyes who thought and still think I’m Superman. As I’m writing this column, my oldest son is talking to me about work, his thoughts on girls, and wondering if the game is going to last much longer. He wants my attention far more than anyone has ever wanted to read my legal or political analysis.

My youngest son has moved on from the beetle. He’s dancing to the music from the dugout. As I cheer him on, he immediately zeroes in on the sound of my voice and gets baseball ready. I give him a thumbs up, and he returns the same. Nobody listens so attentively when I talk on the radio.

Thankfully, God has blessed me with the opportunity to work near home for the last several years. I’m not getting on airplanes every week or pacing my front yard in the dark of night trying to solve problems in another time zone. I have the privilege and opportunity to be present.

I remind myself of that truth constantly.

When marriage and parenting are tough, I feel the siren call of work offering to affirm my personal value. On the other side of the scale is a disrespectful teenager who thinks he knows far more than he does. In reality, I don’t need to make a choice between my self-worth and my family’s future.

As a Christian, I’m valuable because Jesus thought I was worth dying to save. That’s it. It’s enough. Working myself to the bone doesn’t add to that. If I live for professional applause, I’ll die in its absence. That is a rough way to navigate life. If I live to honor God and enjoy his provision for me, I can keep living because God isn’t going anywhere.

Being driven doesn’t mean I can’t be grateful. My work ethic hasn’t changed, but my goal is much more defined. I work to keep the lights on for my family and help other people realize that they’re valuable too. That job begins with the people in my home and builds from there.

For so much of my life, I’ve been striving for something more. I pushed myself to be better. To know more. To outwork the competition. To never give up. I certainly put in the hours to get where I was going. I just didn’t realize the destination God had in mind was a local ballpark on a spring evening as the sun fades away. Frankly, I’m not sure where the destination will be tomorrow, but I’ve learned to show up…and always keep the sunscreen handy.

Smith is a recovering political attorney with four boys, two dogs, a bearded dragon, and an extremely patient wife. He’s a partner in Triptych Media, a business strategy wonk, and a regular on talk radio. Please direct outrage or agreement to [email protected] or @DCameronSmith on Twitter.