Yesterday morning I was trying to put the top on the new
drink bottle I got for my daughter and no matter how hard I tried I just could
not get it to fit back together. And
despite knowing what I was doing was incorrect; I kept repeating the same thing
over and over again. I kept trying to screw the top on knowing there was no
grip. No traction for the top to seal to the bottom.
I looked at the top. Looked at the bottom. Confused by how
the top could come off the bottom but yet would not fit back together. I grew frustrated
so I gave up. Frustrated because even though I knew the way I was trying to fit
the top on the bottom was incorrect I convinced myself my daughter had broken
the water bottle when she had taken it apart. Shifting the blame from me to her.
Trying to find a reason for my lack of ability outside myself. She had to have broken it if I could not fit it back together.
So what did I do when I woke my daughter up? Of course, I
accused her of breaking the brand new water bottle because she was the one who
had taken it apart. She looked at me and told me all she had done was unscrew
the iced compartment that was in the top and had put it in the freezer as the
instructions had told her to do.
Without panicking she went to the fridge and got the bottom
out. Then went to the freezer and got out the iced compartment. She tried to
screw the iced compartment into the top as I had done over and over again. To no avail. And at first I was quite relived that she too
could not get the bottle fixed because it proved that she had broken it. Justifying
my frustration.
She then plopped the iced compartment into the water bottle. I was just about to
yell at her thinking we would waste all the water we had put in the bottle
because I thought we would have to fish the ice compartment out of the bottle.
But before I could say anything, the iced compartment magically and perfectly filled
the mouth of the water bottle. Then she triumphantly put the top on without any
bother. My mouth dropped open. I felt so silly for accusing her of something she
had not done.
She looked at me and I at her. Her eyes gleaming. Proud of
what she had accomplished. And I thanked her for helping me to see something
that was so clear before my eyes. Sometimes we are so blinded by what we
believe that we don’t see what is truly in front of our faces. Sometimes our
minds are made up about what the problem is that we can’t see the solution that
is being offered to us. Sometimes we waste
so much time doing the same thing over and over again rather than stepping back
and seeing what it is that really needs to be done. And sometimes we look to the outside for blame rather than looking within for the solution.
And the greatest lesson of all that I got from wasting
fifteen minutes trying to put a top on that needed the ice compartment before it
closed, was that I have to trust my instincts. Instinctively I had known
the iced compartment needed to go into the water bottle but I dismissed the thought because my brain told me it would sink to the bottom. So without even
trying it, I gave up. But my daughter followed her instincts, her gut and just
plopped the frozen bit into the water bottle and showed me what my inner voice
had been telling me all along.
Had I listened to my inner voice, I could have saved myself
a lot of bother. As well as my daughter. Teaching me in the most basic way that we always know what we
need to do, we just have to take the time to listen to our inner voice. And follow it.
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