I was telling my mother, elatedly, that I'd figured out a technique to keep me from losing my temper with my very, shall we say, spirited 2-year-old. After I got her expected kudos, I finished, on a down and, 'realistic' note,
"Of course I'll probably still lose my temper a lot anyway."
And she said, "Why? Maybe you won't."
The tiniest bit of thrill ran through me. Maybe I wouldn't! At some point, I'd needed a sippy cup to drink without spilling juice, a step stool to reach the sink when I washed my hands and a fire alarm ready and waiting whenever I cooked rice (true story: I set off the fire alarm at my dormitory during move-in day when everyone was halfway in and out with boxes and furniture. Obviously, I never claimed the charred pot as my own). The reasons are all different - I'm better at drinking juice now, i am tall enough to reach the sink on my own and my husband does the cooking.
Tony Robbins says that the past doesn't equal the future and that's a pretty liberating thought. I mean, we never KNOW what will happen to change! Sometimes it's so hard to see, not only in our own lives, but in the world at large, but things do change. People used horses to get around town! Women never used to be able to wear pants. Cell phones were a luxury a few power players could afford.
So that thing? That thing you always seem to do no matter how much you try or always seem to not do no matter how much you try? You never know! It might be next year's memory of a triumph - a growth that allows you to reach the sink now.
