It wasn’t really the racing from the tree to the picnic table which was hard.
Though that was hard enough.
Or, playing the made up game of bouncing the ball off the slide in such a way as to keep me from catching it.
What was hard was the afternoon spent playing with the water table.
A water table is basically a small swimming pool with legs and a couple of additional pieces.
Perfect for plastic dinosaurs and toy boats and bathtub ducks.
What is so hard about that, you ask.
The imagination.
Who knew that dinosaurs and boats and ducks could do so much or get into so much trouble.
Just when I thought we had reached the limit, his mind would spin off in a whole new, dizzying direction.
It was exhausting.
For me.
But not for him.
He was having a wonderful time.
His imagination was running wild.
Trying to keep up with him, here is what I learned.
Imagination running wild is hard work.
We would much rather stay with the predictable.
The tried and true.
We know how to handle that.
At least, most of the time.
Tried and true requires much less thinking and energy
Which is maybe why change
Real change
Is so hard to come by.
We are just not up to the task.
Not up to the perseverance and creativity of imagining something different.
Something new.
Something beyond the horizon of what most people can see.
Because that kind of imagination requires hard work.
And, is often
If not always
Exhausting.
Diane says
June 3, 2021 at 9:59 amHmmm…..sounds like you’re talking about the pandemic! Reimagining is time consuming but so worthwhile. and sometimes books help! _American Nations by Colin Woodard is an example. Challenging, but helpful.