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A question for the ages. Most likely asked by the parents of these artists. When at age five, they littered the house with minuscule pieces of paper cut from colorful magazine pages to glue onto a poster board.  Mosaics I discovered in a tunnel under Lake Shore Dr. in Chicago during my visit in June 2019. Or, when now-famous authors read everything they could get their hands on, including the cereal box while eating said cereal at the breakfast table. Or the engineers, builders, and trades people who spent hours every day building with Legos, magnetic rods, or craft sticks, various cardboard boxes, and hot glue. (We won't mention the number of vacuums and other electronic devices they tore apart to discover how they work.) Or the medical professionals, fascinated with the Grey's Anatomy textbook and incurable diseases from a very early age. Or the working musicians, who memorized every lick and lyric from their favorite rock band while beating the life out of their first cheap guitar. And now parents are asking this very question of their kids while they engage in multi-player virtual games. Can we even begin to guess what skills they are attaining or where it will take them? None of us know what this world will look like or what jobs will be out there when our kids are old enough to enter the workforce. However, understanding that statement as undeniable truth doesn't stop us from judging how our kids spend their time. The blatant hypocrisy is dumbfounding. We want our kids to develop self-motivation but punish them for focusing on (practicing) the things we don't deem valuable. And, as adults, we would never accept someone telling us how to spend our time. The universal argument about balance, the one that I have used more than I would like to admit, is not valid when you understand that balance means something different for each one of us. As I articulated earlier this week, what if equilibrium is simpler - a fleeting sensation that comes and goes seemingly without logical explanation? What if it has nothing to do with the work, play, rest cycle? But, instead is the moments in between where we find our bliss - our reason for being. You and I can not determine those moments for anyone besides ourselves, even if they are our children (or students). *This post was inspired by this article, which I can only imagine was written by a once frustrated parent who asked the title question. DRC News Our "Why" video inspired some lovely comments this past week. Here it is again, in case you have not had a chance to view it, yet. This is encapsulates our Mission Statement in a way that I will never be able to explain through the written word, here. Comments are closed.
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