My 3 year old son came home from preschool with a little report card. They had 13 things they were working on through the past month from learning to write with a pencil correctly to identifying a quarter note and other skills from language and science etc.
When he brought the slip home I looked at it. I scanned it and saw that there was a star by everything except one: “Can complete a number sequence.” It was highlighted yellow with no sticker meaning it was something he had not accomplished.
My first reaction was, what?? He knows his numbers, how hard was the sequence, was it 1.2.3 or was it 2.4.6 etc.
I turned around to ask him why he hadn’t done this one thing-out of 13 and I saw his face beaming at me. And while it doesn’t happen often, I am VERY blessed that I had a brain fart between my brain and my mouth and I didn’t say what I was thinking.
Instead I took him in my arms. And I held him. And we went over the paper-each thing that he could do and we high fived. We got to the number sequence line and he said- ‘but I didn’t do that one.” I looked at him and with all honesty I told him I didn’t care, I was SO proud of him.
And then we made brownies…
See, my 3 year old is in a 4 year old class. This isn’t bragging, but explaining my STUPIDITY. How on earth could I look at my 3 year old who is keeping up socially and academically with children a whole year older than him and nit pick about ONE THING he didn’t do.
And yet, don’t we do it to ourselves too. Don’t we look at something we’ve accomplished and not feel satisfied because of one little thing? My half marathon, I didn’t come in sub 2 hours. It KILLS me that I was 2 hours and 5 mins. I overlook the fact everyday that I ran 13.1 miles and beat myself up about the time.
You do it to. Tell me you didn’t at one point stand on the scale and look at the number and get frustrated, disappointed or discouraged. Never mind that you ate right, you worked out hard-you didn’t loose as many pounds as you hoped too., instead of seeing it as-you didn’t GAIN extra and are heading down a disease infested future path.
Lets remember-no, we don’t want to slack and we don’t want to become complacent, but don’t forget to give yourself a pat on the back now and again-in whatever aspect of life it is. You deserve it-GOD LOVES YOU!
Live today like its the first day of the rest of your life-make today count!
That’s really good Lorri. This really does apply to all of life. I just had a personal failure on a programming exam, and I really was upset about it. It’s not a big deal, I get to take it again, it was just really hard to not be so angry with myself for not performing to the standard I had hoped to reach. A little more patience with ourselves is usually in order
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