We never really graduate from elementary school.
Posted on 25. Jan, 2010 by D.B. WASSERMAN in blog
Well, here it is. My first written blog post.
It has been hard for me to keep up, in both a timely and creative manner, with my video blog. Sitting here tonight I felt more inspired to pen my thoughts, so to speak.
The fort – a representation for anything we want to build for ourselves in life.
As a child I remember looking forward to going off on my own, away from my parents, and creating a world with my friends that no one else could touch. That pile of sticks and garbage in the woods that we called our own. It’s easy to sit and reminisce as if the fort no longer exists – but it does. For some it’s a career, a lifestyle, a relationship… that one thing that you aspire to construct to such proportions that will leave others standing in awe, and in which you will marvel. You’re always content with it, but know that there is room for it to grow – the fort could be a castle, the castle a city, the city an island… until your entire world is your fort. How often (even today as adults) do we stand back and say, “Look what I have accomplished!”
This isn’t to say everyone is striving to grow the fort – we all have that period where we become bored with it. We look at it and say, “I’ve done my best… this is it.” Sometimes this thinking leads to abandonment for a summer or two, other times it leads to closing other out for fear that they will wreck your masterpiece. In the end, it isn’t the fort that matters at all – it’s who you choose to become while building it.
The friends - a group of people that simply provide comfort, not necessarily built on common interests, but rather familiarity.
The word friend definitely changes over time, but the qualities are essentially universal. I may have one friend who I have known since the first grade, the others I have collected over the years – but still, not a year goes by where the group remains the same. It’s simple math; you add some acquaintances, subtract some friends, divide your differences, and each year the number multiplies. Today I was talking to some friends with whom I lead the young adults group – we were discussing possible options if we were to reach the point of having to split the group. The idea was proposed to simply instruct each person where to go, at which point I said “There’s no way that would work, we’re all still in kindergarten.” No matter how much we try to deny it, we would sooner leave a group than remain with people we aren’t yet familiar with.
Extroverts and introverts alike prefer familiarity, comfortability, and self-assurance over new situations and change. The same way we refused to move from the seat directly beside our best friend in kindergarten, and the same way we claimed our seat at the lunch table in high school.
Our legs are all broken, each of us the same – our friends are the crutches on which we lean to feel confident, safe, and functioning.
Look at all of the little things from elementary school… the finger painting we’re so proud of, the macaroni necklace we stylishly sport, how loudly we can play the trumpet, how well we can spell, how quickly we can read a book…. Are these not the same as the P&L report we construct meticulously, the trendy outfits we buy to show-off, the actions that get us attention, the simple things most everyone can do but we think we’re best at….
We don’t change… we adapt, we replace, we forget. We surround ourselves with friends as we build our fort… stick by stick.
Though I feel like I may have rambled on, I believe this is the point which I have been building too… don’t envy the fort of another, don’t destroy the fort of another – there will always be a better fort… but yours was built by your own two hands. Be happy with your fort. Be happy with your friends. That’s how you graduate kindergarten. Appreciate the little things.
Recent Comments