How to Live Life Like Christmas Morning

I got a text from my mother in law. "Please have the boys write out a list of five things they want for Christmas." I could hear them scampering about downstairs. School was out and they had forgotten to tell their brains they could sleep in. Like roosters, they were up boasting and beating up pillows with bravado, forming a castle to anhilialte all castles. When that was done, the squabbling started.

"Boys!" I beckoned as I walked down the stairs."Nana wants you to write out the five things you want for Christmas!"
All ears perked up. They froze and then dashed to find paper and any available writing utensil. A highliter, broken, naked crayon, they didn't care.
"Get some paper and write it out neatly." I directed needlessly, for they were well on their way.
Like a masterful magician, my eldest son wiped out a two foot chart with thirty toys listed, complete with pictures cut out from magazines, secured on with several layers of tape as if to protect it from a hurricane. How the heck did he produce that so fast I wondered...but my train of thought was broken by his clear and concise explanation he was launching into of each item.
I interrupted him...
"That's great sweetie, but Nana only wants five. You cannot give her that list."
"Oh, okay." he said, a bit disappointed...then he perked up. "I will pick my TOP five." And he did.
Then he helped Bronson pick five things and began to write his list for him....with items from HIS two foot list, so he could get more vicariously and I had to intervene and redirect Bronson to what HE wanted.Ben acquiesced and helped by writing down yet another version of Toy Story 3 toy that Bronson quite surprisingly does not have yet.
They wrote carefully, and with utter focus. They wrote happily and quickly, yet with the utmost care to spell everything correctly. They sounded out each word and didn't lift their eyes from their task until they were completely satisfied that their list was a masterpiece.
I stood in wonder.
See, flash back to a few month ago, when it was high summer and I feared their brains might be beginning to rot from lack of academic use...would they remember how to write coherent sentences after a three month break?
So one morning I sat them down and said "This morning you are going to write a story." I put pencil and paper before them and their bodies deflated before me with utter despair.
"WHAT? Noooooooooooo. Uhhhhhhh unnnnnnn....noooooooo."
"What? What are we going to write about? I don't wanna. I can't think of anything...but my hand hurts...I'm hungry...."
The complaints tested my patience like an elephant on a tightrope.
It was such an ordeal to get them to write a paragraph. They whined and whimpered for twenty minutes. Then after they were done, they sulked for another twenty, as if I had punished them and our trust was broken forever.

It occurred to me that the difference between this morning's request to write out a Christmas list and my previous request to write a story about anything they wanted...required the same exact action. One just occurred to them as much more exciting. The result would be of benefit to them, it would be thrilling and appealed to them because of the great promise of a fantastic result. The other, albeit the same exact actions, occurred to them as just writing to write, just doing to do.

I realized that, in life we react to how a situation OCCURS to us, how we see it, not how it is. If we want to live a life of excitement, focus, enjoyment and mastery, all we need to do is simply shift how that situation occurs to us. Creating an action as an opportunity, and seeing an end goal which excites us, even if we don't have control over the final result, is what has us live life fully.

So where ever I am in life, even when the future seems to be getting bleak, my children inspire me to make it a fantastic game...to envision an end goal where I am delighted, connected to people I love and jumping up and down ecstatically. Because I get to say how I see the world, and when I am present to the inspiration my children are, I choose a view that has me buzz with anticipation like Christmas morning.

Zen Honeycutt

From Drudgery to Discovery

My automatic way of thinking about learning is that it is hard and tedious. Especially to kids. Most likely, I am going to get resistance from them to try something new or they will give up quickly. Kids are "just like that" I think...


As I watch my son in his 5th piano lesson, I marvel at how quickly his little fingers move and how fast his brain memorizes the keys to play. The teacher shows him something once or twice and he has it down. He is using two hands now, already working on harmony and chords. He skipped the first 25 pages of the workbook and plays everyday, more times than I can count. I wake up to the theme songs to Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Wars. He will be playing with his brothers and then suddenly he runs off and is playing a song or two. Then he comes back to play. He is exhibiting what I think the brain most wants to do when learning something new...repeat it several times a day until it can recall it with ease...and then move on to something new. He has fun, is proud and looks forward to his next lesson.

I am so glad I was so WRONG about this! I wonder what else I might be wrong about?
I wonder what I haven't tried to learn because my idea that it is going to be hard stops me...foreign languages, advanced art skills, herbal healing. I would love to learn more everyday and often just don't. Then I wonder about what else I might be hesitant in having my kids learn because I think it will be tedious for them. I remember my father sitting me down and quizzing me in math facts or spelling for what seemed like hours. I couldn't stop yawning. So I resist doing that with my kids...and one of them could really use the support. What would it be like to make math facts fun? Use chocolate chips to subtract and add with? Do math facts as we are doing jumping jacks? Make art with math? What might he learn, ,and gain in confidence if he can see that learning is fun in this area too?

And what if one of my sons is secretly talented in something I think is too hard? I wonder what it might be?
My ideas of learning are obviously impact my life an my kid's life. There is so much more available to us if I let go of these old ideas and create.

Tonight after a rare excursion out to eat at a restaurant, to celebrate Bronson, our 3 year old, learning how to swim from my friend's 8 year old daughter, I noticed that my two eldest had a blast filling out the math puzzles on their placemat. Children naturally WANT to learn. It is naturally fun for them and they are proud of it. They show me their accomplishments with glee. I realize that although they learn much with my guidance, manners, how to paint, sew, build a campfire, fold laundry, countries around the world and how to eat healthy, they also learn much without me, sometimes even better without me. If I were telling Bodee to practice piano he would probably decide it's a drudgery and resist it. If I had told Bronson he was going to learn to swim today, he probably would have cried and clung to me. Sometimes taking ME out of the equation equals less of what I want for them and more of what they didn't even know they wanted. Sometimes children need to be away from their safety net to fly, be released from a schedule to dive into what they want, when they want. The space for them to want to learn makes the learning fun... and creates discovery.

So I wonder what new things my children and I will discover today?
What have you wanted to discover?

Zen Honeycutt