Baby steps make life happen!

I know as a teen and twenty-something I made the erroneous assumption that I was invincible and could do anything perfectly the first time. As I have aged I have come to embrace the fact that this isn’t real life. I laughed all the way through an old movie, “What About Bob”, because it promoted the simple fact that life happens best by taking ‘baby steps’. There isn’t any short cut to learning, understanding place of failure in life, trying a tenth time and then ‘God forbid’ I have to actually be humble enough to ask for help. 

I have had such a thrill in life watching younger kids, teens and young adults do something new for the first time. The big picture is that a few are good at lots of first time things but the majority, myself included, who are normal people require baby steps to figure out new things. Over the last couple of weeks, I have watched a few do indoor rock climbing for the first time. Most, struggled doing free climbing because it required both brain power and upper strength. Yet, by the end of the day most were able to make it to the top with the rope because they listened to their trainer. Yes, there were a few that only made it half way. Yet, the good news is that they were able to do more than when they arrived at this incredible indoor facility. 

Yesterday I took a group to Bartlett Lake where we went tubing on the lake. Yes, getting into boat for some is a rather scary life experience. Forget, jumping into a lake that is rather different than going swimming in the backyard pool. Once someone is bold and brave enough to get on the tube it’s not ‘rocket science’ to stay on. The difficulty is when either the driver, me, chooses to go too fast or make bizarre turns or the rider decides to do something wacky like either stand up or choose not to use hands to hold on. The clear life lesson is that most anything can be learned by taking little steps to master what’s before you!

It has been so rewarding being a grandparent who has watched our grandson go from just smiling to crawling, climbing up, kind of walking to now being able to run, do flips and be a little helper. I know that doing swim lessons will be more a challenge for me then for Hudson. Yet, the real message in life is that a new relationship, new job, new pet, new house or doing something totally different requires an adventurous spirit and willingness to learn through failing. 

I know that it’s not easy for adults especially to take a step back and be a little kid when it comes to facing new things in life or trying something that they have ‘bombed’ a second or third time. Time to start taking more baby steps to see your life go somewhere different and be adventurous!