by Mona Bapat
I was once in a talent competition that included both adults and children competing with each other. After my performance, while I was brooding over how I wanted, and deserved, to win first place, one of the contestants caught my eye: a girl about 10 years-old, red hair, freckles, and a magnetic smile.
I was worried about whether I should have bowed or said “thank you” after performing my piece and I asked her what she did. She let out a cute giggle as she said, “I don’t remember!” When another kid said they were nervous to hear the results, she very kindly and directly said, “Well, the hard part’s over.” Now that’s a soul who knows how to stay in the present moment, do her best, and let the rest go.
Child is the father of the man. William Wordsworth. I don’t recall much from my 10th grade English class, including the author of that line and had to look it up – I originally thought it was Ralph Waldo Emerson. But that line I remember. Though there are many interpretations of this line from Wordsworth’s poem “My Heart Leaps Up”, mine is: children have a lot to teach adults.
Adults are supposed to be wiser than children. Yet children seem to have an easier time with some of the basics of life, maybe because they do not yet have years and years of the world contaminating them. They are purer and more in touch with their core selves than we are.
Staying in the moment, doing my best, and then letting it go is still something I’m working on improving. Serendipitously, I have a magnet on my fridge that reminds me of that – I have no recollection of where I got it but it is giving me the message I need to receive each night:
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done all you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. —Ralph Waldo Emerson
And a lot of nonsense I do have. A lot of it makes me, well, me. And a lot of it gets in my way. While growth is not linear and is often 10 steps forward and 8 steps back, I’d like to think that I’m progressing forward. That the spunky kid who didn’t second guess herself is still in there and working to get out.
By the way, I did win first place in the competition – but there were a few first places among a few categories. Not quite the result I was hoping for, but I’ll take it.
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