| (Book Recommendations at the end) Here’s the deal. I’m what some (my wife) would call a prideful man. It’s easy for me to look at someone (my kids) and tell them, “Hey, do this or that, trust me, I know better.” And maybe this has never happened to you, but I recently had one of those moments where my 10-year-old daughter was putting up this HUGE fight, and I gave her some of my timeless wisdom, only to hear what I said and have it hit me… and hit me HARD… where I was like, “Oh… Erik… you’re as guilty as she is.” So this story starts with her fighting against playing the piano. “It’s BOOOORING!” “I’m not getting any better!” “It’s Hard.” That last one is the one I want to focus on. It’s hard. Later that same day, as she was finishing up her homework from school, she more or less quit on the assignment because, “it’s hard.” Even at 10, she is a great little runner (think… track & field) and has recently wanted to quit that because… you guessed it… “it’s hard.” We Grow Out of It…right? Who am I kidding?! No, we don’t. In the middle of my wise, fatherly lecture about how she’ll look back one day and thank me and her younger self for sticking with piano, or homework, or exercise, or anything else hard… I brought up the fact that at some point, EVERYTHING was hard. This caused a thought spiral that stuck with me for a few minutes. Think about that. Nothing we have ever done, ever in our lives, started out easy. From our first second out in the real world, we come out absolutely screaming. Why? Because breathing air on our own was HARD. Living outside our warm, protective mother and in the cold world was HARD. Adjusting our eyes, figuring out how to use our hands, eating, crawling, walking, running, jumping… these all used to be impossibly HARD. But then… they weren’t. With guidance, practice, patience, some falls and scratches and scars, they became… less hard. And, in some cases, there are things that are so easy to us right now, that our 10-year-old selves would’ve never imagined how cool they would become. Halloween My daughter is afraid of HARD. She says she’s scared that she’ll look stupid or silly. Which is weird, because when she gets with her friends, she has no problem acting stupid AND silly, but I will never profess to understand the inner workings of the young girl’s mind. But this fear she has… she likely gets from her dad. I’ve been afraid of a lot of things in my life. Like… A LOT. Spiders, snakes, heights, falling, skiing, ghosts, scary movies, girls, death, looking stupid, and yes… hard things. So, in that moment of me telling my 10-year-old little girl that everything was hard, until it wasn’t… it was almost like I was talking to myself at the same time. Aging Up As I get older, many of those things that were hard as a kid, but became easy, are becoming hard again. My body doesn’t work like it used to, and I know I may be preaching to the choir here, but I’m a little bit afraid to get up and do things that used to be easy, but are… let’s say… not as easy as they used to be. Exercising. Ugh. Expressing how I feel to my friends and family. Scary. Making the time to just play. Not efficient. Finding the time to be with other human beings and talk about something deeper than sports or the weather. Hmm… seems too vulnerable. Sometimes, these are hard. But, they seem to always be worth the effort. Seasons As we move into fall, with the colder weather, falling leaves, and snow… more things will get hard. Driving… for one. Utah drivers are nuts. Throw in some snow and hiding in my house seems pretty wise. But, over this next month, I’m going to try to do some hard things. I’ll let you know how that goes. |
| PS – Here is that 10-year-old I speak of. She’s my oldest, and sometimes, her personality is too much like her dad’s. Other times, she’s just like her mom (thank goodness). I have a kid with BRACES?! How on earth did that happen?! |
Book Recommendations
Here’s the part where I get to share some fun books with you.
Recommendation #1
The Rosie Project
Graeme Simsion
I thought this book was as cute as can be.
The main character is a geneticist with undiagnosed Asperger’s Syndrome and his attempt to construct a test to find his perfect mate result in some pretty funny scenes.
This was a fun read that my mother-in-law REALLY had to convince me to try, and I’m glad she did.
Get it Here
Recommendation #2
This is one of the few books that I can say COMPLETELY changed my perspective on how the world works.
Ryan Holiday is a former “Marketing Guy” who was behind some of the most successful marketing campaigns in recent history. This book was written before the TikToks and other explosions of social platforms and the spread of information, which is even more scary, and you’ll see that the tactics he describes are being used on a staggering scale.
The language gets colorful at times, but you will never read a blog, watch a news program, or look at the world the same after reading this book.
Note that if you do purchase a book through these links, I do make a small commission. You don’t pay any more. Just a few pennies go to me rather than Jeff Bezos.
Hey, you made it this far, why not just subscribe to this little blog we just shared together?
Erik Soderborg 