Skip to main content

Undeterred by Impossible



I feel like I learn a lot from my kids. As a first-time parent for the fifth go-round, I am being educated like never before.

A couple nights ago, I was sitting down on the floor with my eleven-month-old son. We were enjoying some nice, relaxing down-time when the peaceful quiet was shattered by the orders being barked my oldest, Braelynn. “One hundred jumping jacks and ten burpees! NOW!!!” As my daughter was channeling her inner drill sergeant, all these kids started coming out of nowhere like some kinda midget flash mob. As the initial surprise faded, I realized all these kids were actually mine and I was quite impressed with their swift and orderly response. As they began to knock out their jumping jacks, I wondered why they don’t obey their parents with this much enthusiasm, but I digress.

As the four oldest worked through their calisthenics, I noticed my baby gazing intently at the events unfolding. His eyes grew wide with fascination as he watched his older siblings follow the direction of their fearless leader. I could see the excitement building up inside of him until the point he could no longer hold it inside and he burst into a frenzy of activity. Now, he can’t walk nor can he stand without bracing himself with his arms – this makes jumping jacks very difficult. But undaunted by the fairly significant constraint of not being able to stand up, he began to fervently wave his arms up and down, quite impressively executing at least the upper half of a jumping jack, but also looking like he was hailing a cab in NYC like his life depended on it. Even though he was sitting on the floor, his bottom half was still engaged as much as it could be. His legs kicked and flailed as his little butt bounced up and down on the floor. You could hardly label his activity as jumping jacks, but that didn’t stop the little man from fully investing all his effort and energy into giving it his best shot at doing whatever he could to join in with the rest of the troops.

Too often as adults, we curtail our own effort or energy because we see the task ahead of us as too burdensome and daunting and succumb to defeat before we even begin. Maybe we feel this gives us an “out” or an excuse when things end up not working out anyway. Maybe it’s because we don’t want to fully invest ourselves in hopes we can limit our inevitable disappointment. I don’t pretend to know all the reasons, but I do know, what my son was trying to accomplish was absolutely physically impossible for him, yet he threw his entire being into the attempt regardless of the inescapable outcome. And I can tell you he thoroughly enjoyed every second of it, despite the fact one could argue he “failed” to accomplish the exercise. He was committed to the process, regardless of the outcome. I hope to learn to muster the same enthusiasm in attempting that which others say is impossible.

"Start where you are, with what you have and make something of it." George Washington Carver


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Toxic Humility

We have all seen false humility: the guy who tries to hide his arrogance with feigned modesty. It’s usually pretty obvious and always obnoxious. But there is also another variation of false humility out there: toxic humility. This is often displayed in self-deprecating talk and a lack of self-confidence, belittling or undermining one’s own talents and abilities. The danger in this kind of behavior is twofold: it is too often accepted as true humility and like a virus, it spreads doubt and disbelief. To clarify, it is not that the bearer of this toxic humility isn’t honest about his view of himself. That is the very issue: he absolutely believes he has little value or utility. He thinks downplaying his own worth is humility but I disagree. CS Lewis said it best when he wrote, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking about yourself less.” His point being, true humility is not an ever-present raincloud of self-doubt that follows you around. It’s a focus on
Post a Comment
Read more

Commitment

  You know what the problem is with a lot of goals and grand plans? They are mostly fueled by emotion rather than commitment. It is why most New Year’s Resolutions are long forgotten by now and many aspirations quietly fizzle out over time. True commitment is sticking with the effort even – if and especially when – the emotion has diminished or disappeared. Emotion can be a great initiator of action, like kindling on a fire, but it lacks staying power. Commitment is the logs that keep the fire burning long after the kindling is consumed. The butterflies after falling in love, the best intentions of waking up at 4:30am every day to work out after you join a new gym, the excitement of your first day on campus, even the sleep-deprivation induced euphoria of a new baby: all kindling. But it is commitment that keeps you working hard on the marriage twenty-three years after “I do.” It is what causes you to keep going when you do not want to make one more sales call, do one more presentat
Post a Comment
Read more

Glutton for Punishment

I’ve learned over the years that being comfortable can be a dangerous thing. I try to find paths to discomfort to push me out of my realm of “safety.” However, I have noticed my ability to develop comfort zones amidst discomfort. I’ve found ways to be comfortable in uncomfortable circumstances. I wonder, do I need to be stretched beyond those areas as well? One of the areas in which I have adapted to the discomfort is the gym. I don’t go to the gym to exercise, to get stronger or even to be healthier. It’s grown beyond that. Now, I go to the gym to clear my head by testing my will and resolve. I do it to see how hard I can push my limits and I strive to outwork everyone else there. I may not be the strongest, the fastest or the fittest. I may not lift the most weight or even do the most reps – I can’t control any of those variables – but I can control my effort. So one of my goals for each workout is to unleash more effort than anyone else at the gym. But along with this
Post a Comment
Read more