It's in the Process

There is an English Proverb that says “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Too often we want to achieve a goal but reject the steps needed in the process. My daughter is a beginning reader. When she was younger, I used to read to her and she would follow with the pictures, which would entice her to ask tireless questions. Since she started kindergarten this year, I figure I should let her read to me and help her with the words she has not yet mastered. Although she is very excited to learn how to read on her own, she is impatient to complete a book without frequently needing my help. When I am not sitting with her, she would guess a word by using the letter sound, but when her impatience kicks in she goes on to make up her own words to replace the ones she cannot understand.

 My advice to her is that it is okay to ask when she does not know a word, that is how one learns; as she learns new words every day, she will be able to read them correctly and completely on her own before she knows it. Understanding her frustration, we created a plan to work on a paragraph each day. Each night, we read a new paragraph, but we conclude by starting back from the previous paragraphs, and replicate the same process every night. At the end of the week, she is able to read the whole book all by herself. As I look at my daughter going through this exciting process, I begin to think about all that I want to achieve and become reticent to the process of getting there.

Sometimes, we just want to get there. No sweat, no endurance, no perseverance. Just think and boom we have arrived. Well, in a sense, when we think about something, it is the beginning process of what ever we hope/wish for to become reality. However, the next step is usually that we have to ‘work’ toward making it come to life, which is where it gets a little complicated for some of us. 

A process should bring comfort  when we already know the end result. Therefore, having a system in place, and creating a picture of our needed accomplishment not only in our mind but also visible should enforce and empower our ability to touch the gold. As a result of the reading process, my daughter look forward to the end of the week to read a book completely on her own, but she understands (at least she’s starting to) that she needs to take it one step at a time. Likewise, we can attain anything we set our mind to, but as the English Proverb clearly states, the journey of a thousand miles would not be completed until we beginplacing the left or the right foot forward.

©January 2013 Natacha Michel

One Life to Live...Live It!

On my way to work this morning, I left the house early enough to arrive respectively on time. I had enough time to look around at some of the neighborhoods and their beauties. I could not believe how much had changed in areas I frequented daily and had been missing. While some areas have increased in value with stores and populations others have deteriorated miserably. In my ‘drive-thru’ moment, I did not pay too much attention to my fellow drivers behind me. I was just about crossing an intersection when a convertible tracker crossed me then drove right in front of me. Needless to say that I was a little perturbed of this little malicious behavior, but on the back of the truck where the spare tire is located, written in bold white letters: “One Life to Live, So Live It.”

How many times have we said that to either ourselves or to someone else? How many times these words simply fail to exist as soon as we close our mouth after saying them? No matter how much we know we only have one life to live, we seem to continue to live as if we have many in front of us. Like the tracker driving suddenly in front of me, sometimes we wait for some events to remind us of such truth.

Life as we know it keeps going no matter what we do or say. If we do not pay attention we can easily miss important occasions. Therefore, tackle every day as if it was the last day. Embrace every moment, be wise, laugh out loud, enjoy the people in our life, be quick to forgive and make up, and most of all get rid of don’t and can’t but create sentences with do and can. We may have only one life to live, but we have many chapters to turn.

© January 2013, Natacha Michel

Count Your Qualities

After reading a book, my daughter and I usually choose a trait of character to add on our sheet of “character list” we have created. Characters that are good for anyone to possess, such as, be kind, be a good listener, be independent, and be “bucket filler” and not a “bucket dipper” (bully)... Often, when she comes home from school, I would ask how she did in school, if she had to exercise any of her traits; her response would judge mostly as expected for a five-year old. Of course, she answers proudly yes mommy that she was kind, she was good, and she was “a bucket filler,” but also would not fail to mention who among her friends were not, which then reminds me to add on our list, “do not be a tattle tell”.

We are all born with certain qualities. They make us who we are as individuals, but we do not all possess the same characteristics. What one person has others may not have. Some of these traits come with age or maturity. For some of us, like my daughter, we do not realize that we lack certain trait until we are exposed to the need of it. Some of us build character through the production of endurance from suffering, and others through the wisdom gained from life’s experiences and joy. Thus, until we find ourselves in situations that allow us to express certain features of ourselves, we would not know and enjoy fully their benefits.

Although, we ought to be grateful for who we are and for the good qualities we possess, we should always be hungry to gain more and better characteristics in our life. When situations arise, we should allow ourselves to awake and develop the characteristic traits, which until then, were remained dormant inside of us.

©January 2013, Natacha Michel  

HAVE YOUR RESOLUTIONS YET?

People make all kinds of resolutions; lose weight, take a vacation, exercise, read more books, or call family and friends more often. It seems there is something about January that entices people to write new resolutions. January is the first month of a new year, which can symbolize a new beginning, new hope, or a new start. Unfortunately, many resolutions fail through the crack before the month reaches its 31^st day. It is amazing to see how one can go to such an extent to assign certain goals into her life only to diminish them as simple wishes, or the thing in the past.

Some goals are too irrational to reach, but others are quite specifics that if one really puts the mind into it, they not only can happen but also can become very successful. So what is it that is missing in the thought process of writing these goals that seems to fail us from achieving them? It is like an adrenaline, one moment we see all the possibilities of making these goals happen, we feel it through the core of our being. Some, we can even touch, taste, and smell them. Another moment, it becomes a thing in the past; we would even curse someone if we are asked how we are doing with these goals. Usually the lacking thereof in our pursuit of these goals is what can turn them into successful stories.

We cannot expect to attain a different result if we keep doing the same old thing. Before we write our resolutions for this year, maybe it would be wise to re-evaluate the ones we had for the past years and determine what processes had worked and what had not worked. Once we complete our evaluation and find our result, we are encouraged not to repeat the same mistakes from last year but to use the successful ones as a boastful attitude to achieve our new goals.

©January 2013, Natacha Michel 

Happy New Year To All Of You!