Between sessions today I got some time to think about what it means to be in the moment and apart from it. My thinking started earlier in the day when I was talking to some students about metacognition and the importance of finding time to self-reflect. Personally I rarely have the time to do that. Much of my daily energy is spent trying to accomplish goals and what I have left is largely devoted to the bottomless pools of need and excitement called kids. None of this is bad. It is typical of the people I know. We each spend ourselves in daily pursuits and never have the time to step back and consider those pursuits or what it could look like to actually change or improve aspects of our lives outside of the traditional ‘make more to be more’ state of change. I am blessed with a moment to step back today. The kids are handled, and far far away. The trappings of my daily existence are removed, so I am forced to break routine and think about the routine itself.
Among the things I intuited from this experience is that routine itself can be a damaging thing. There is a monotony in doing the same things day in and day out, especially if those things that are being done are fiercely mundane. Wake up, brush teeth, eat breakfast, go to video games, watch kids play, go to school… it goes on and on. I think a lesson that I can take from this is that I have the power to break the routine and through that inject some sense of wonder into their day to day lives. This is all part of learning to be a father—the remembering that the way you lived and the way you want to live and act and be and draw up routines isn’t necessarily right or wrong or even what your kids need. In fact, what I think my three need is that daily moment of recognition that life can be what they chose it to be for themselves.
That just sounds fantastic.