December | 2015 | Chakra Community

You’ve come a long way, baby!

You’ve got a long way to go!

Sometimes this ride, we call life, feels like a roller coaster. It seems like you just got on and you suddenly realize the ride is coming back to the loading station and it’s time to get off.

Other times it seems like our ride in life is like Frodo trying to destroy the one true ring in the fires of mount doom. Long, Tedious and filled with interactions with people that remind you of Gollum.

No matter how you look at it. No matter what your experience. You can only rely on one thing, as soon as you think you’ve got it figured out, it will change.

I keep working off this fantasy in my head that some day I will be perfect. Some day I will attain a point of enlightenment or wisdom where nothing I come across phases me and I’ll understand the nuances of how the world presents itself to me and how I respond to the world. At this point in life, I, at least, have enough wisdom, to say to myself compassionately, “You can keep dreaming Kevin, or you can decide to wake up. But fantasy is the right word for that line of thought.”

This morning, as I was making breakfast, my daughter was reading a book. She’s just getting the reading thing. She recognizes letters and is learning to sound them out. As I finished up some dishes I overheard her sounding out the word cat. “Cuh-Ah-aT. C-A-T. Cat”. I had a brief flash as I remembered the stages of development where I was starting to sound out words and how long it took for simple things like “See Dick Run. Run Dick Run.”

Even today, all these years later, I often judge myself as being a slow reader. I’ve met people that can sit down with a 300-page book and read it in a few hours. I’ve met people that can read a 300-page book in a few days. If I focus, and I’m loving it, I can get through a 300-page book in a few days. But it’s an act of attention. I can whiz through a harry potter book or ready player one. But sit an average novel in front of me and my mind will wander. I still have a book case full of books I can’t quite give up on, but know that I’m never going to read. They have bookmarks in them from 5-10 years ago gather dust and taunting me with their unread, yet non-engaging pages.

Regardless of my penchant for unread tomes. This is more about my judgment of my tome reading speed. I see my daughter reading and realize while I don’t measure up to my fantasy of how fast I should read, I have in fact established a rather phenomenal speed and capability that was not an inborn ability. I had to learn to read and practice a lot to get to where I am today. Although I’m slow when I’m not engaged, you give me a good book and a few hours to myself and ‘shazam!’, I rise to the challenge.

Today I am already more than I think I am. Today I am still not all that I can be.

Today you are more than you think you are. Today you are not all that you can be.

You’ve come a long way, baby!

You’ve got a long way to go!

Embrace the challenge of the future and appreciate your past.

Namaste,

Kevin

I think part of the reason it’s fun to be a parent is that you get to watch your own experiences mirrored back to you from a different perspective.

Just the other day my 2 1/2 year old was trying to pull up the zipper on his coat. I heard gentle crying and I went to see what the problem was.

There he was with his zipper just connected at the bottom. He practically had tears in his eyes as he said, “This is hard.”

I’ve seen him successful zip up before, and he even gets kind of cranky when I intervene, so I became the observer without saying anything, just kindly watching.

The crying began to get louder as his frustration grew, but he kept trying.

“I can’t do it,” escaped his lips as he began to scream.

But he kept trying, and crying. Frustrated, but working the problem.

The zipper starts to stutteringly move up the coat.

Relief and joy replaces frustration and struggle.

“I can do it,” he states energetically.

Closing triumphantly with “I got it, this is easy.”

This whole interaction took a matter of a few seconds. But it had a big impact on me. My son moved on and has probably forgotten the whole affair, apart from some improved muscle memory from the action. But I keep thinking about observing that and what it means to me.

The compression of the incident was enlightening. When I have struggles in my life, as an adult, they take weeks, months or even years to go through all these phases.

This is hard. I can’t do it. I can do it. That was easy.

It’s easy to forget, during the length of the struggle that this will end. You will figure out the solution.

Seeing this daily reminder of struggle to success is a sweet way to encourage me to keep going. Yes, the zipper feels stuck right now, but in moments it will break free and I will experience success.

Everything children experience is fleeting. They are learning so fast. Each milestone is followed by another and another. Each success followed by another seemingly insurmountable struggle, then met with success. It is astounding when you consider the things that we learn in the first few years of life that are so hard and challenging and after all the time spent struggling to get it, all the effort put into it, you forget about it. Kind of ironic.

We don’t get a placard for our wall stating we have successfully learned to walk, or pull up a zipper, or tie our shoes. These major accomplishments are forgotten. If you had a trophy room, and the desire, you could print out a certificate of completion for so many major life skills. You could wallpaper the entire room with the skill certifications you have mastered.

It’s easy to forget all your accomplishments and just focus on what you haven’t done yet. Remember that you have done a lot.

You have succeeded in the past, odds are you will succeed in the future.

Namaste,

Kevin

Chakra Community

Reminding you why you came to this life

Monthly Archives: December 2015

You’ve Come A Long Way Baby!

Struggling Gracefully