Driving back from our annual family vacation, my husband and our cousin passed the whopping 8 hour drive with the silly talk necessary from going crazy in a car packed with a very nauseous dog and two small children who really were not happy to be crammed in the car next to the dog crate.
As strange as it sounds, this is one of the profound memories that I have of the trip. Somewhere around hour 4 we began discussing reality TV- the good the bad and the very ugly. Our cousin, in from LA, gave us her insight on an episode of Top Chef where the two competing chefs had to make ice cream, only to find that the freezer was not operating correctly. The one chef became very frustrated and spent a good deal of time (OK maybe edited for TV time) complaining, whereas the other devised a different solution whereby he froze the ice cream into smaller containers-thus reducing the freezing time. So why is this so fascinating to me? Because it is about life.
Life often hands you less than ideal situations and you can either spend the time and energy complaining about it or you can challenge yourself to use that same time and energy to focus on another way to solve your problem. The latter of which is far more positive and productive.
This really resonated with me and tonight, at the dinner table when CJ was faced with a less than ideal situation and I said, "You can either sit there and complain about it, or instead think of a solution." I made a few suggestions and we devised a way to accomplish what he needed to do an he was pleased at what he devised. Now at 10:30 PM, long after the kids are finally asleep I am thinking about it again and how a simple life lesson for a child can also go a long way to reminding his parents of what is most important in life.
