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Today I had the pleasure of taking my oldest daughter, Jasmine, to school. I enjoy doing this, but usually I am at work by the time school starts. Originally I had plan to take my youngest, Jane, with me and run errands. Jane spent part of the night causing havoc for everyone else, so she decided to sleep in this morning. Fortunately, Papa agreed to come and stay with the sleeping monster.
As we were about to leave Jasmine went to Papa to give him a kiss. And he send to her, "Now, what do I want you to do today?" Jasmine looked up and said "Pay attention and learn two new things."
What a great idea! When is the last time an adult consciously made an effort to pay attention? There are a lot of things we pay attention to just as habit. We pay attention to our work, our driving and the tasks we need to get done. But how often do we pay attention to each other? I know I can have a whole conversation with my husband and he doesn't understand a word, likewise; he will spout on about something and I really have no idea what he has just said. In recent years, we have had horrible news stories mentioning that parents didn't realize that their children were building bombs right in the garage.
In the case of spouses, I'm sure if we paid more attention to what the other was saying our lives would be less stressful. If anything it would cut down on those little squabbles that result from "Why didn't you do what I asked?" While the majority of us probably have some idea what are children are up to, how many times do we miss their little cries for attention? We should at least hear those wimpers and then choose what action to take.
Every now and then I hear someone utter "Well, I learned something new today." Usually, they happen to learn something new accidentally. As adults we don't always go out of our way to learn something new each day. It's a great concept. Learn two new things a day. Go and discover two new things each day.
Now, of course, it's slightly easier for a first grader to learn two new things everyday than an adult. After all, everything is still new at that age. But even as adults we probably let opportunites for learning pass us up. How many times do we just read the headlines and not the article in a paper? How time consuming is it to look up a word in a dictionary.
I figure I am halfway to learning two things today. I've already learned to pay attention and learn two new things.
October 10, 2001 |
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