A Quote
Everything is changing, including you, me, and everyone.
At 70 years old and with 6 children, one thing I have learned over and over is how our children evolve and change over time.
The dangerous trap we can fall into with our children, and others, is our tendency to see each other as static entities based on our current perceptions of them, often laced with judgments which are so often black and white assumptions based on what we see on the surface.
But below the surface in all of us is a river of complexity, and through my children and my work with surgical residents and surgeons, I have become much better at dropping my judgments of the surface observations and, with more curiosity, try to look below the surface to better understand someone else's complex reality and perspective.
This takes muscular patience, not only to take the time and energy to try and look deeper into the river of another person's reality, but to also take the time and energy to keep looking, over and over again, until you can really see another person in all of their messy, fascinating, and crazy complexity.
I've found that is critical to have this level of muscular patience with others as they evolve and change over time to become, hopefully, the person they are capable of becoming.
And no where is this more true than with our children. The forces of what we want and hope for them and their lives are powerful as hell, and our desire to protect and push them to do things so they are "successful" and secure before they are ready, so we can feel more secure about them, can end up being a pressure cooker for them.
Whenever you find yourself saying or thinking "you need to____" or "you have to____," take a moment to wonder if maybe more time, space, and muscular patience on your part is what is actually needed.
Time and space are in short supply these days. I have found that the more muscular patience I have to give time and space to my children (and others) so critical for their evolution into becoming who they can be, while being a lighthouse to guide them on their journey, is one of the most rewarding things I have ever done.
Because just like a garden that is tended with loving care and patience, the reward is seeing your children and others blossom into becoming who they are meant to be.
Patience is a form of wisdom.
