Baby Steps

According to Gallup Polls feeling sorry for yourself just passed Baseball as the National Pastime.  Let’s not play ball!  When your life reaches a roadblock it’s normal for you to say “why me?”  Ironically, we look for someone to blame when we should be looking in the mirror.  Why take responsibility for personal actions when there are so many easy targets to blame?  Responsibility is hard;  it’s easier to blame someone else, wallow in self pity, and then listen to Adele albums all day.   On the other hand “life happens” and set backs just occur randomly with no one to blame.  Random disappointment is harder to wrestle with since there isn’t “something” or “someone” to focus on causing your issue.  “I just know I caught COVID from that strange guy two seats behind me on the packed Southwest Flight from Phoenix on  Tuesday October 22, 2021.”  We are so precise in our criticism that we have become comically incorrect to a fault.  In those cases it’s best to throw logic out the window and approach it one little step at a time.

When Devin was a baby we spent countless hours baby proofing the house – latching the top of doors, putting locks on cabinets, inserting caps into electrical outlets; all to prevent him from hurting himself.  But babies find a way – one day he was crawling around, his little fingers covered in orange juice and somehow found the one uncovered electric socket.  I didn’t have it in me to scold him while his black finger tip was still smoking.  It wasn’t his fault, what does a baby know about electrical grounding?  A few days later his monitor was on the fritz, so being a highly intelligent adult with a Master’s Degree from Duke University, I unhooked the battery adapter and touched my tongue to the chord connected to the electric socket lighting me up like a Christmas tree. Why did I do that? I don’t know, it made sense at the time. But, conveniently I blamed Devin for my scorched tongue.  Logically, if it wasn’t for him being a baby we wouldn’t have owned a baby monitor in the first place so therefore I wouldn’t have touched my tongue to the electrical cord.  It’s his fault, for God’s sake, throw me a bone people.

When random bad things happen we shouldn’t spend a lot of time looking for logical answers to “why?” nor mope around spreading your sadness like Typhoid Mary.  Instead approach your difficulties like babies do.  Consider little kids with leukemia; it’s not like they caused their illness from decades of  drinking rotgut vodka and smoking Marlboros.  Unfortunately for them childhood leukemia just happens.  In spite of that, I’m always amazed how these little people suffer immensely with smiles on their faces and tackle hardship like champions.  What brings them joy in the face of pain are the simple things that we as adults have misplaced:  warm embraces, quiet moments, and the hope to once again run out the front door into the sunshine.  Too often we are looking for logical answers in an illogical world while ignoring the obvious answers from little people clearly visible in plain sight.  Slainte.