Emptying your desk, a space you occupied for a time before iPhones, represents the accidental version of a time capsule. I don’t question why I kept anything because the answers fall into just a few categories: time, curiosity, or didn’t want to lug it home.
In the depths beyond the dust, I found newspaper articles that made me giggle (yes, once people read these large, clumsy, binding-less, paper forms of news that did not require blue light glasses). One front page of the USA Today in 2007 had a five-year-old mouthing a tennis racquet like a teething ring above the title, “Could this 5-year-old be the future of tennis?”
Well, the time capsule answered 15 years later.
“No.”
The years in between proved that, in the interest of a “good story,” adults had their own ideas about the future. And they did not speak the language of the child. Happens often and will continue in an adult world that professionalizes kids’ sports in the name of something kids truly can’t deliver.
With limited language driven by the concrete and emotional, and without perspective or a sense of time, young children speak a different language. One closer to the heart. For an adult, it might be easy to think a kid saying, “I want to be like Roger Federer” (one of the greatest players of all time) means we have to pack up, quit our jobs, and find the best tennis academy in the world—even if we have to move to another country.
Dreams matter and a vision in its purest form (and not as a corporate mantra) is precious. But it’s just the first step on the yellow brick road. It’s extremely rare that they come in full form with a described path.
Especially to a 5-year-old.
So, delight in their joy as they play. Delight in how free they are in the process and motion of play before they graduate to the adult world of “deliverables” and “results.” Delight in their curiosity, adventure, and mistakes. Soak in the smiles, laughs, tears, tumbles, and scraped knees. Delight in the fun…in the play and the playing.
And if they happen to share a dream. Listen. Smile. Delight in their expression of what enjoyment and child-like mastery feels like. Then, in the present, cast aside your need to search the internet for solutions, pathways, academies, and “tools.” Right then, share your joy for them and with them.
Then ask them, “What do you want to do now?”
Most likely, the answer will be… “Play!”
Photo credits: Fabian Centeno; Johnny Cohen (unsplash.com)
