The Eyes of a Child

I think God might think I’m a bit dense and that He has to hit me over the head with ideas in order for them to get through my thick skull.  And let’s face it; He’s probably right.

I’ve been S-T-R-E-S-S-E-D out lately.  Everything has been getting to me.  I have zero patience.  I’m starting to feel really bad about it.  My daughters don’t really notice because I’m pretty good at keeping it to myself, but whenever I keep things like that to myself, they fester and get worse until there is a big, infected, oozing abscess on my heart.

And then today happened.  By most accounts, it was more stressful than usual.  At the end of the day, I convinced the hubs to take the girls on a run with me.   When we do this, he pushes the girls in the double stroller, and I run ahead of them working on my Couch to 5K training program.

Today I was up to a 25 minute run.  Now this should be something I am really proud of because 31 days ago, I was huffing and puffing through the 60 second jogs.  So I finished today, and I felt like a champion.  I was on top of the world.

And then I checked my handy running app and found out that in that 25 minutes, I had only ran 1.5 miles.  1.5?  Really?  At that rate, it would take me nearly an hour to complete a 5k.  I refuse to be the one at the back holding up the ambulance from crossing the finish line.  So I started to mope.

Then TJ let Goober out of the stroller, and she asked me to run with her to the car, so we took off.  She was jogging and having fun, and I was huffing and puffing trying to keep up with her, feeling sorry for myself for my lack of speed and lung capacity.

And then I watched her run.  She was giggling loudly, her pig tails bouncing up and down.  She was wearing a yellow dress with a yellow princess dress up skirt, and she was screaming about how it was so much fun to run so fast in her princess shoes.

And then I got it.  I wasn’t enjoying myself because I was counting and judging.  How much time?  How many miles?  How many weeks until the race?  Where does that get me?  It doesn’t motivate me, and it surely doesn’t help me find the joy in life.

So then TJ caught up with us and started to put the stroller in the car while I attempted to get the girls in their car seats.  Of course there were tears and wiggling and screaming.  (Car seats are never fun.)  And the lesson was lost.

A few minutes later, we were sitting in the Walgreens parking lot while TJ ran in to get some eggs, and I started checking my Facebook page.  A Facebook friend had posted a link to the following article from Scientific American about creativity and children.  I’ll let you read the article for yourself, but the basis of it is that in order to increase our creativity, we have to see the world through the eyes of a child.  The author asserts that the very mental habits that make us successful in the adult world also make us less creative, and I would add, less joyful.

And so God only has to hit me over the head so many times.  I’ve heard the lesson.  If I focus too much on “adult things” like time, cleanliness, productivity, and numbers, I will be unhappy.  If I instead look past all of that (sometimes,) I will be able to more clearly see the wonder of life.  We can’t always focus on the wonder of childhood, but maybe when we least want to is when we most should.

And so I make my goal for the week: whenever I get stressed out, I will take a moment and try to find five things that make me smile.  I will look to my children and see what is making them happy; I will try to see the world through their eyes.  And then, like usual, I will probably forget the lesson and go back to the mundane, but at least I will have found a moment of joy in what is oftentimes a stressful world.

What do you think?  What is one thing your children have found to be amazing that you would have completely overlooked?