With school back in session, I recalled a learning experience my wife and I shared one day some years ago. Enjoy!
One beautiful day in February, Mary and I took a brisk walk through the neighborhood. The temp was in the low sixties, ocean-blue ink painted the sky, our dog, Belle, pranced beside us. It was spring!
But could it be spring? A couple of hours earlier the groundhog saw his shadow; spring can’t be here for 6 more weeks! It never fails!! Or, does it?
“Ah ha!” I said to Mary, “It is spring! Look here on this bush; yellow flowers! The forsythia are starting to bloom!”
“Whom are we to believe?” She asked “The forsythia or the groundhog?”
We continued past a large, beautiful, split-stone home with a sweeping lawn, mature trees, and beds of daffodils beginning to show off their golden trumpets.
“That confirms it!” Mary laughed. “Spring is here and not too soon! Forget the groundhog; believe in spring!”
If it snowed the next week, we could blame the groundhog, blame Mary, blame me. We have a right to be wrong. Enjoy spring, now. Enjoy the now, every day.
Speaking of being wrong, make sure your kids know they, too, have the right to be wrong. The only people who are never wrong, are the ones that never say or do anything! It is said that Edison was wrong about the electric light bulb hundreds of times as he tried filament after filament until he found one that worked.
Do we give ourselves and our kids that option? Or do we require them and ourselves to be perfect?
Dare to take a chance, take a risk, have fun, and live your life. But, use the judgment you have learned from all the mistakes your predecessors and you have made. Just don’t do things that will be life threatening, except to protect the life, health, or safety of someone else. That’s a fine line and can only be learned by the mistakes you and others have already made!
Mary gave one of our grandsons, who is studying to be a research scientist, a Christmas ornament that said, “Of course we don’t know what we are doing. That’s why it’s called research!” He, like all other researchers will learn, like we all do, from his mistakes.
Learn from your mistakes and let your kids have enough room to make some of their own. Let them learn!
It is said that; “Knowledge comes from other people’s mistakes, wisdom is gained from the mistakes we make.”
