I was in Seattle a few days ago visiting one of my closest friends (and biggest inspirations) from college. While she was preparing dinner, I was in the backyard playing with her two children. They have a big fort/jungle gym in the backyard (When I asked who helped build the jungle gym, the eldest of the two children said “Grandpa did. He’s a really good worker.” Kids…they say the darnedest things.) The youngest, a gorgeous little girl who is almost two, was climbing up the ladder that led to the top of the jungle gym. She kept on repeating, “Slide! Slide!” as she climbed a ladder, which was almost 6 feet off the ground. She made her way over to the slide, sat, and slid down. She then repeated that for, oh, about 10 minutes, never showing any fear of climbing a wooden vertical staircase 3 times her height, or flying down a childproofed sheet of plastic with no breaks. On her last trip down, she decided that she was done with the NORMAL ways to go down the slide, turned around, and started climbing UP the slide. And though she could only make it about halfway before she slid down, she just kept on trying to go up, up, up, and continued to climb, climb, climb, until something else sparked her attention and she went running off across the yard (This time it was to sit and play with the clips on her bicycle helmet strap. Who needs a PS3 when you can give kids a shoe box top and a water bottle and they can play for hours??)
Watching my friend’s daughter play, I was so amazed at how much she WASN’T afraid of. She climbed up that ladder like that was what she was born to do. No fear in her eyes at all. And when she was climbing up the slide (and not getting very far because her slick shoes prevented her from climbing very fast), she continued to persevere because she WAS making progress. No fear of failing because, well, if she slipped and slid down the slide, she would just get back up and start all over again. Seeing all of this, I thought to myself, “Where did I learn to be scared from? Who taught me to fear failure? And when did I become so jaded about not trying things because of the fear I might fail?”
I have been thinking about that day all weekend, and am still in awe at the ability of kids to just go for it with no fear at all. So why can’t I be that way?
Truth of the matter is, I can. Anyone can. You just have to “tweak” the way you look at life and what’s in front of you. It’s taking yourself to the perspective of “What’s the worst that can happen?” You fail? GREAT! Failing at something is one of the biggest “wins” you can have from an experience. Why? It teaches you what didn’t work and, more importantly, it opens up different ways of thinking on what you need to do in order to succeed. Malcom S. Forbes said “Failure is success, if we learn from it.” My friend’s daughter would have eventually figured out that climbing UP the slide wasn’t the best way to get to the top, and that she’d probably be more successful if she went back to the ladder. But she wouldn’t have known that unless she tried. And she ended up having some fun in the process as well.
Don’t be afraid to fail…embrace it and learn from it.
And to think I was reminded of this from a little girl climbing up a ladder. Don’t discount the power of children…they can teach you a lot more than you think.
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