Just this week I found myself having to do a bit of summer reading. The book was called Loser, with a target audience of 4th graders, and it certainly was not my top pick for must read books this summer. I got roped in as it was a summer reading requirement for the 10 year old boy I nanny. The poor kid was having problems getting into the book and it literally had taken him all summer to get through the first 100 pages, so as summer was coming near to a close I figured I'd give him a little motivation to finish. At first I just thought he was being non compliant about reading and dragging his feet but after striking a deal with him that we could tag team the book and take turns reading chapters, I really couldn't blame him for taking his sweet old time to read it. It was awful! Awful as if this book were a movie, it would be along the lines of Freddy Got Fingered, and at the end you would be wishing for those wasted hours of your life back. It didn't flow at all, and was mostly a bunch of nonsense with abruptly written chapters, and to top it off, there was no moral to the story whatsoever. No buildup. No amazing conclusion. It didn't even get you in the feels. Pretty much just an entire waste of time. If it didn't keep my attention, you can imagine how much less interested a ten year old boy would be. The gist of the book was about this loser kid (which I feel bad even calling a fictional character) and about how bad he sucks at life, all the time. As if his life wasn't bad enough to read about, there were also some less than colorful supporting staff. For example, there's a kid in the story that saves his ear wax to make a candle. (As if kids that age need any help with gross ideas!) My 5th grade teacher Mrs. Yorke would have been appalled. We were writing works of art in comparison to this guy's adult literary refuse. Enough said. We aren't here for my personal writing critique on children's books and what that says about the state of the world we live in. So, moving right along. In the midst of this atrocious book, I did stumble across a gem of a sentence, like a glistening diamond in the rough. It was at a part in the story where a little girl runs away and the loser kid is trying to make sense of it. Then came the following sentence which stopped me dead in my tracks. "A kid runs to be found and jumps to be caught." Pause. Read it again. Think about it.
A lot can be said in a few short words. That simple statement is so true on many levels. It's almost freeing to think about. When we are kids we do things for very simple reasons. Our responses are directly related to the needs we have. When we grow into adults however, we tend to make things ultra complicated. Running and jumping look more like falling into the arms of another lover, filling our lives up to the brim so we have no time to think, numbing ourselves with various mood altering substances, making excuses, doing things in excess, or countless other things we do to make ourselves feel better and avoid the issue at hand. Why do we lie to ourselves and others about the reasons we do things? Fact is, running and jumping are risky and we big tough adults don't want to take the chance of getting hurt. When we do these things we tell ourselves it's for this reason or that, and occasionally that might be the case, but more often than not it's just a convincing argument we use to draw everyone including ourselves away from the real issue. We will justify, play the comparison game, and make sure to stay around the people that validate our decisions rather than challenge them, all to avoid going through pain. The kicker is, we will NEVER move past it by ignoring it. Is it possible to get back to simple uncomplicating life in our adult years without methods of coping? Yes. Find the root cause where the branches of behavior stem from and cut the cord. My favorite method of finding the root cause is asking questions until I no longer can find an answer for them. Amazingly understanding the start brings truth and acknowledgement into the current situation, and then you can start walking through the issue and leave it in the dust. When you are conscious of something it's much harder to continue down the same path of behaviors as you did when you did not recognize it and the damage it caused. Once you've faced it head on, you must choose from then on to call a spade a spade and deal with every issue truthfully regardless of what follows so no further burying occurs. Deal with everything when it comes, don't bury it and try to uncover it 15 years down the line. Though the concept is simple, it can be as difficult as we allow it to be. As I said earlier for being brave adults we are terrified of pain. Often we find there are a long strand of decisions we have to follow back to find that core reason. Many times it is so simple of a reason, it is overlooked. Sometimes it stems so far back in our history that we disregard it's potency. What I've come to find in my own life's digging is no matter how insignificant something seems or how long ago it occurred or what we we diminish it to, it still has the potential to affect our today if we never took the time to walk through the pain to get to the other side.
That brings me to some other questions. Is the way we feel something to be embarrassed by? I personally don't think so, but if your thoughts are contrary to mine, why is that so? Was it how you were taught? Was it learned behavior? Was it decisions based on experience? Are these thought processes still relevant? And seriously is being vulnerable really THAT scary? Have you tried it? If so, was the last time you tried telling the truth, the last time you got burned? How many present choices are we making based on past experiences with different variables? Does that even make sense? The list of questions we can ask ourselves can go on and on. The important thing is we take time to keep on asking those questions (preferably the hardest ones) and looking for the answers. After all the truth will set you free.
Speaking of truth. It's funny how scared we are of that when it has to do with ourselves. It's as if we treat honesty and transparency like the climax to a great movie where all life is hanging in the balance of whether you clip the blue or the red wire...like if the whole world knows the real you, the beautiful and the ugly, that everything might just implode! Truth is it would in a way. In my opinion, that's exactly what this world needs...an explosion of all these walls we built up, and baggage we are carrying with us daily. What's so bad about being who you are and telling the truth anyway?You're still gonna wake up tomorrow, and be who you are whether you like it or not, whether you are faking it or not. The you core is always there whether it's being carried around hidden like a burden in a backpack or easily worn for all to see. The only difference is if you choose to show your true colors you don't have to spend every waking moment trying to fit into the lie of normal (which is a fabrication of our imagination) fighting back the real you. Man I'm exhausted just thinking of it. And I only know this exhaustion because I've been there. Sad thing is, so many of us are in this position and have been for so long, that we don't even realize we are fighting anymore and we wonder why this life exhausts and drains us. We just know something's not right and we don't know how to fix it. But now you do know, so it's time to start. Use that energy to unbury yourself instead of fighting against yourself.
There's no reason we need to hide who we are to fit in anywhere or into anything. We shouldn't be ashamed that we as grown adults still want to be loved and cared about and seen. Revel in your human frailty so God can be that much more glorified in our weaknesses. Though we are very different we are much the same, looking for the identical things in so many different ways. I truly think inside of all of us are those little kids that just want to be found and caught. The key is to never stop being those kids.
I will close this out with this:
“And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3 NIV
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