These are some of the defining questions that went along with the task. I thought they might help to understand what I’ve come up with.
What are you excited about (personal or business)? What are you building or want to build? You know, the fun stuff in your life that you actually care about.
Side note: I know I missed the day 4 blog. I’m still working on it. No one ever said I had to post these in order. 😉
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I’m not a business person; at least not at the moment. But I’m excited about finally going back to school. I’m excited about some of the interesting courses that I’ll be taking. I’ve always loved being a student. I know, I’m weird. But it’s true! I’ve always loved learning about stuff. You should see me, with my highlighters and different coloured pens. I take notes 2 or 3 times on the same things and although I type much faster than I write, I prefer to learn by writing because it’s the slowness of writing my notes down on paper that gives me time to absorb what I’m writing.
What else? What am I building? Well, I’m building this blog. Right now it’s not much and I’m not sure how many people are actually reading my posts but it doesn’t really matter because I’m enjoying the task of writing. I’m enjoying the freedom that I’ve given to my inner creative writer, whom I’ve kept locked away in a dungeon for too many years. Ooh dungeons… now my inner geek is awake too, sending me visions of castles and dragons and knights and wizards. But seriously though, I’ve started this blog as part of a Live Your Legend exercise, and I understand why they promote the idea of using a blog as a format to build a business – and maybe one day, this WILL take more focused shape and become some sort of business – but right now, I’m just enjoying writing and sharing with whomever wishes to listen.
Back to the reason why I’m excited about going back to school. I’m excited because even though I can’t quite see what it’s going to lead me to, at the end, I know that it’s in the direction of what I’m passionate about, which is working with youth – teens and young adults. Have you ever just quietly watched teenagers, especially in a group (in a non-creepy way)? They are so passionate; they have so much energy to devote to whatever it is they’re passionate about. It’s a wonderful time in one’s life because at the same time as having passion and energy, you believe that anything is possible; you believe that you can change the world. Unfortunately, most of them grow up (and it only takes just a year or two, usually right after they graduate high school), and begin to believe that no one is listening to what they have to say, or that no one cares or takes them seriously. That is the biggest tragedy of all. But it doesn’t have to be. What if we listened to our children, our teenagers, and our young adults? What if we encouraged them to follow their passions, their dreams? What if we took them seriously, no matter how old (or young) they are and fuelled the fire of their passion, whatever that may be?
Every so often, I ask my daughter what she wants to be when she grows up. As expected, it tends to vary, but there is one that keeps returning: She wants to be an astronaut. She wants to fly to the stars and go on adventures to other planets. But instead of doing the typical adult thing and chuckling, telling her she’s cute and patting her on the head, I tell her what a great idea that is, and ask her what she thinks she’ll discover, and I talk to her about the stars and the moon. She’s only 5 years old, and who knows if that desire will remain or if it will dwindle and she’ll move onto something else. But I don’t want to be the person to make her think she can’t achieve it.
When I was a teenager, I felt powerful. I wanted to help people and I wanted to change the world. I was passionate about the environment, and about helping troubled friends find their way back to the light. Even as n teenager myself, I was curious about the phenomenon of adolescence and I was highly conscious of the fact that there was something special about us. There was something different about us that we couldn’t find in little kids, or adults. I remember looking at adults, like my mom & dad, and clearly seeing that they just didn’t understand me, and thinking “they’ve just forgotten…” That’s what happens when we become adults, isn’t it? We let the daily grind of life take over and blur over the thoughts and dreams that we had when we were younger and soon, we realize that we don’t believe these things are possible anymore. Is that why we say that we were “young and stupid”? Why do those two words need to always be together? Without realizing it, by saying “young” and “stupid” together, we start to transpose it to young people in general as we ourselves grow older.
What if we changed it to “young and brilliant”?
What if we recognized the talent, the potential, the passion, and the power that all these things have, when they come from someone who is discovering who they are, and added to that momentum? What if we allowed it to feed US? What if we piggy-backed onto the passions generated by our children, and let it help us remember who we were; who we really still are but have forgotten?
Isn’t it true that when we let life beat us down, that’s when we feel old? But when we find a new passion or remember an old one, we feel young and alive again?
Ever since my daughter was born, I’ve been calling her my little ray of sunshine. My daughter’s super power is to spread sunshine (joy, love, passion) wherever she goes. As a baby, while I was still on maternity leave with her, I would take her grocery shopping and talk to her while I picked up different items. “What should we pick up today? Do we want bananas?” I would show her a banana and she would flash me her glowing smile so I added bananas to our cart. We would continue like that, walking at a leisurely pace, and what I found was that during the daytime, when everyone was away at work, the only people out grocery shopping would be older retired people. And so as we toured the grocery store, we would meet up with them. At first, when I spotted them down the alleys, many of them looked … despondent. But as soon as my daughter was in close proximity, they would smile. Normal, right? Who doesn’t love babies? But it was more than that. My baby, who was barely 6 months old, would give them her best radiating smile, and reach out to them or do something to make them laugh, and interact with them for, oh maybe 30 seconds. But it was enough to change their mood. As we rolled away in our cart, I would look back and see the lasting smile that she left on them. My daughter the ray of sunshine.
Here is a video of my daughter and I at Christmas in 2011. She’s about 16 months old here. I had given my mother a gift that made her so happy that she began to cry. As I leaned in to hug her, my daughter decided she should do the same.
https://youtu.be/KViEFSJtg4w
I love to observe my daughter when she’s using her super power. Still now, it’s a part of her. Oh sure, sometimes she forgets who she is, and she has her tantrums. But when she’s around people, she radiates, and people gravitate naturally to her because of it.
And so I often think “I wanna be just like her”.
Seriously! We should try to be more like our kids every day. Don’t you want to play more? Don’t you want to do things that are fun more often? And when you encounter something that displeases you, don’t you want to just leave it there and move onto the next fun thing that you can think of doing? If you watch kids play, you’ll see that this is what they do. It’s only when WE interrupt them and impose rules and things they HAVE to do, that they throw tantrums. But in their natural state, kids KNOW that life is supposed to be fun, and that wellbeing abounds.
I wanna be more like that. Don’t you?