My daughter is 1 year old and just started walking. I am amazed how relentless she is at learning how to walk. Every day she would fall down many times and then get right back up again to try again. Her face is full of excitement as she takes more steps and now only after a few weeks, she has gone from only walking a few ginger steps slowly to practically running down the corridor.
Imagine what we adults can accomplish if we acted like a 1 year old – never giving a second thought to “falling down” but with every waking hours just keep trying and trying to reach our goals with enthusisam and vigor. There is no concept of failure or looking good to a 1 year old. There is no thoughts of regrets of the past or worry for the future to a 1 year old. Everything is the present and everything is just a journey to the next part of growing.
When and why did we “adults” lose that? Aren’t we all growing still until the day we die? As we grow up to “adulthood,” it seems that we have come up with many reasons to try less as well as have developed a habit of giving too much meaning to something meaningless. A bad interview or a mistake made on the job is the adult equivalent of “falling down” as we pursue our career dreams. To a 1 year old, these are just opportunities to learn how to do better next time. Many of us, however, would make it mean much more, something about our self worth or market worth, and it spirals from there.
Imagine if my 1 year old did the same as we adults do today. If everytime she falls down, she spends time analyzing what happened and what does it mean about herself, she may not walk until she is 5 years old.
It’s up to us to recognize that in life we are sometimes the ones that actually stands in the way of our dreams. If we just try our best at every single moment and look at “falling down” as only opportunities to learn instead of failures, we can be unstoppable. Imagine what we can all accomplish!
– Lei