“Life is full of surprises and serendipity. Being open to unexpected turns in the road is an important part of success. If you try to plan every step, you may miss those wonderful twists and turns. Just find your next adventure-do it well, enjoy it-and then, not now, think about what comes next.” Condeleeza Rice
When Miss O was about six months old, I went out to dinner with a couple of business acquaintances that had kids were teenagers and young twenty-somethings. As I was enjoying fantastic Chinese food in the dark atmosphere of a fancy downtown Seattle Asian fusion restaurant, one of the women slipped in an aside that has stuck with me for all these years. It was something like, “You can’t reason with kids that are 2 ½ to 4 years old.” Wide-eyed with new motherhood, I wondered what holy hell that would be.
Now that Mr D is about to turn four years old, I’ve gone through the window that the woman mentioned twice. That’s enough to realize that it isn’t as precise as I took her comment to be at the time. And also enough to find some interesting lessons about what lies underneath “reasonableness.”
I consider myself to be a pretty reasonable person. This is a perfect spot to insert some joke about whether others in my life would say the same. But more or less, I think they would. There may be an exception about my propensity to bite off a lot but as I wrote in my Being a Yes-Sayer post, I’ve got Shonda Rhimes on my side on that one.
But watching the small examples of humanity I see in my children has made me realize three things:
Routine: When reason doesn’t work, routine often does. I’m guessing this is how most parents of small children manage to make things happen. But looking at my life I see how much I do simply by routine – yoga, meditation, writing, showering, making breakfast to name just one routine that I do every morning. And it flows because I don’t question it. Also, when it’s interrupted, I’m very unsettled.
Override: There’s a lot of things little kids don’t want to do. I’m thinking specifically about inserting a stick with bristles and flavored paste in their mouths to scrub all sides of every surface, and then go to bed. But when some parental influence is exerted, it usually happens.
Cue to the end of the night when I’m sitting in my chair reading. Guess what? I often don’t feel like getting out of the chair, brushing my teeth, putting on face creams (there’s a lot more these days), and going to bed. But I do it. Watching kids makes me think about how many things we do in a day that we don’t really want to do – eat vegetables, go to school/work, brush our teeth, wash our hands. I’m sure the list varies for everyone but to one degree or another we are doing a ton of things that we don’t “feel” like doing. I think we all deserve some recognition and applause.
Delight: Reason is not a pre-requisite for delight. In fact, my observation is that reason might hinder delight when we are too focused on the above routines and overrides. Mr. D was riding his training wheeled bike in a bike lane along a well-traveled route the other day when he got off to crouch down and point out the ants he saw also commuting down the road. He was fascinated by the activity and direction and wanted me to join in on his delight. I, however, was almost too preoccupied by trying to get us out of the lane of bike traffic even though no one was coming.
It’s a scene that plays out over and over with my kids. There are a myriad of wonders up, down, and around, and these beautiful young minds around me point them out to me. Only then do I notice, and when left on my own I only tune into a FRACTION of what they see.
Maybe this is why I feel a little sad leaving this “window of unreasonableness” as coined by my colleague. Sure, we’ll get a lot more done – but I’d like to keep the congratulations and delight.
Surprised By Joy 