Who are we protecting?

Have you been told that you must protect your future self? — this person you are meant to become. That is what I have been telling myself. But why? — Because some guru touted it in the recent months.

Have you ever felt like you lost yourself? Maybe you aren’t sure of your purpose or what goals you should be working toward. You have tried vision boards, affirmations, journaling, or meditations, but they only leave you feeling more lost than before.

Is it because you are searching for the wrong thing?

We have been conditioned and taught to look towards the future. We look around us to define success, or even worse, we look at those “ahead” of us to define success. While doing so, we get farther and farther away from not who we are supposed to be but from who we are.

Who we are is the answer we are looking for.

A few days ago, I made it a point to ask my 13-year-old and 10-year-old daughters to tell me everything they love. I want a record of what their deep roots might be. You see, I had this aha moment and have been having many of these lately. The first aha moment relevant to this story is that I don’t want to force my kids to participate in activities in the last half of their youth that they don't enjoy and won’t support who they could stand to be in the future.

As we grow older, we get farther away from who we are.

I don’t want that for my girls.

Staring at these lists, I see a lot of things. The items at the top of their lists bring them the most joy, and they could have a profession in one day. But my biggest takeaway is one I am having right now. On the surface, my girls appear to be so different, but on paper, they have a lot of similarities.

I see there is a lot I am doing right in their lives. There is one area I can improve on, and there is one area I need to enhance significantly.

The greatest gift we can give our kids is seeing them, supporting them, and listening to them; at the end of the day, this compounds and lets them know they are still special to us.

Do you remember the blog post I wrote some months back, where I let Juliette skip school since she was going so hard (ugh, I want to homeschool my daughters) with all of the theater rehearsals immediately followed by 4 performances?

Here is the link to the blog post, Best Day(s) of My Life.

I had this big revelation that day.

Kids (and people) aren’t necessarily seeking happiness — kids need to feel special.

This thought should have hit me long before this day, but I was so caught up in my mind and world when Bubba passed away.

When I was devouring Og Mandino’s books some years back, I read The Greatest Miracle in the World. The underlying truth of this book is that every human being is born as nature’s greatest miracle and most precious creation. Og writes poetically about how a newborn baby, fresh from the hands of God/the Universe, is the rarest and most valuable gift imaginable.

“For the first time you learned a simple truth and quit being a satirist in your own little theater — every man is a miracle. Every newborn baby is the greatest masterpiece ever conceived and created by the universe.”

Og describes each baby as a “priceless masterpiece” and “the greatest possible accomplishment of nature.” He urges us to see the wonder and uniqueness in themselves from the day they were born.

The underlying message is that if we can rekindle and nurture the belief that we entered this world as miraculous creations, prized above all else, we can rediscover our self-worth and boundless potential.

If that isn’t powerful, I don’t know what is.

I sit here smelling the pages of that book, which takes me straight back to my childhood. My favorite scent wasn’t freshly baked cookies or my birthday dinner at Applebees; it was the scent smelt from the inside of a good book — if you didn’t know, the good ones all smell the same.

So, who are we protecting? — I ask with a huge, goofy grin.

Our original self.

That was my big realization of yesterday.

The rain was pounding when the kids woke, which I witnessed while sitting here at this keyboard, so naturally, swim team practice was canceled. So at 9 AM, I booked two movie tickets (x4), and we precariously ventured up to town.

We watched If and Garfield.

The day was perfect.

We caught the 10 AM showtime of If while dining on lunch food and popcorn. We then took a brief walk to Tyler’s (a store selling clothes for all ages) so Scarlett could replace her stained shirt, then through the mall and Barnes & Noble. Our goal was to ride the trolley, but we kept missing it. I sat down to do a couple of emails and make a call while the kids grabbed and read books. We walked out of there weighing 100 pounds more and returned to my car to drop off the books. We briskly walked to the grocery store to grab some candy and then hurried up the escalator. Upon scanning the QR code to get our printed tickets, Juliette said Scarlett was bleeding. I asked for bandaids, and while waiting, the blood just poured everywhere. I rudely ran to grab some paper napkins to stop the bleeding. Scarlett had cut a gash across the underside of her big toe. It was almost 2 inches long. Eventually, I cleaned her up while catching the owner's attention. He was so kind and even served me complimentary oysters during the movie. We arrived late at the 1:50 PM Garfield showing, as we tried to shed the overwhelm from the last 45 minutes.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t perfect, but it sure was good.

After the movie ended, the girls asked to use the restroom, and I stood there waiting next to the movie poster of If. It dawned on me—I don’t think we should be living life for our future self; I think we should be living life for our original self.

So yes, I do actually think my day was perfect. I hung out with my precious kiddos, spoiling them, then took a bath and a nap, ate dinner, and went straight to bed.

I turned it off so I could wake up super early for you and for me.

Today is going to be a day. We have to leave the house at 6:30 to be across town for an away swim meet. Wish us luck.

With love for every single one of you,

With love,

Jo

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