I’m not the first person to go through this. Not even close. 107 billion humans have been born here on Planet Earth. Being a new dad brings me into a elite fraternity with over fifty billion members.
But when you’re a new dad - even with the amazing resources of the healthcare system, community and internet - sometimes you feel alone. Well, not alone. You’ve got someone to care for. And that little person is forcing you to play a new role. Skip out on some sleep. Teach them. And show them the world.
A new baby wants to discover things. What is that smell? What does it feel like? What happens when I climb this? What does dirt taste like? Should I put it in my mouth to find out? (The answer is always yes).
They are filled with boundless curiosity as they seek to learn the way the world works. The way gravity works. The way an action garners a response.
And that’s the appreciation my son has brought out in me - by teaching him about the world, it forced me to develop whole new perspectives. I walk by a brick wall that I pass everyday. He stops and wants to feel the textural difference between the brick and the mortar. I’m trying to get us to the elevator. He wants to spend time sprinting down the hallway and testing how high he can jump. I bring him on his push bike down the sidewalk. He wants to launch it off the curb and into the street. (My wife was super happy about that one).
As we continue to grow as both father and son, he’s going to teach me infinitely more. In the meantime, here’s five lessons I’ve learned so far:
1. ALWAYS BE CURIOUS
The world is a wondrous place. A light turns on. What did that? Where did it come from? The TV didn’t just turn on by itself. Look behind the TV. Is that where the image is coming from? Where is that sound coming from? How does it work? My son is constantly looking behind things to see how they work. Pretty soon, I’m sure he’s going to be looking inside them and start poking around.
Curiosity is the drive to discover and learn. When we step off the path of learning, a large part of it is because we’ve lost the joy. Our brains are set in our ways. We want to stick to the easiest thoughts and neural pathways. Our brains are trying to conserve energy … why waste is on learning new things?
Because it’s the joy of learning that keeps us young. It keeps our brains elastic. It makes life fun. And at the core of that is curiosity. Curiosity is the heart of lifelong learning. And it’s something that we can practice everyday.
2. ASK FOR WHAT YOU WANT
Especially you can’t reach something. I want milk. “Milk please”. I want to be up. “Up please”. I want to go outside. “Outside, outside, outside!” I don’t want to wear shoes. “Shoes no!”
These are the words I hear every single day. It’s helpful. When my son makes a (semi) clear articulation of what he wants, life is easy on all of us. It’s easy to decide whether it’s negotiable. It’s easy to get it for him. It’s easy for him to (most of the time) get what he wants.
As we grow older, we stop asking. Maybe we grow shy. Maybe we’re embarrassed. Or afraid of rejection. We rely heavily on external expectations and unspoken social contracts. And when we don’t explicitly ask, we are often disappointed. All because we didn’t ask.
So ask. Most often, the worst thing that can happen is that we hear “no."
3. TEST BEFORE YOU STEP
Take a look before you leap. I’m not sure if my son is overly cautious for his age, or a quick learner. But when he’s on his own two feet, he's often tearing around. Until he nears a ledge. Or something that he has not seen before. And then, I can see the actual calculations happen in his mind. How far down is it? Is the thing I’m about to climb on stable? I’ll test it with one foot first. Let me poke it for a bit. Alright, seems good(ish). Let’s go! BOOM!
It’s a balance. A balance between the desire to keep moving forward and the desire for safety. Between the excitement of the new and the security of not injuring yourself. A measure of caution is never foolish. Just don’t let it ruin your day or stop you from achieving your goals.
4. THE TOOLS TO GET WHERE WE WANT TO GO ARE ALL AROUND US
Need to to climb onto a chair? Reach reach reach. Hmmm … that doesn’t work. Oh look, I can move these books and then stand on them. Now guess who’s on the motherf*cking chair bitches!
That’s my life. My son will climb on anything. And he moves stuff around to do it. What it illuminated to me is that everything is a tool. Just because I see a book as something to read, doesn’t mean that it can’t also be a step. Just because I see a box as packaging, doesn’t mean that it can’t be used in a game of peek-a-boo.
The tools we need to achieve our goals are all around us. They might not look like tools. They might be labeled as something else. It just takes a little creativity to unlock their potential.
5. START BY IMITATING. THEN MAKE IT YOUR OWN.
Learning a skill starts with getting a sense of the pattern you want to create. You see something you want to do - let’s say kicking a ball. And then you imitate. My son stepped on the ball. Then swung his leg at it. Then ran past it. Then kicked it. Followed by thunderous applause and encouragement from me.
Words. Movements. Actions. All get imitated. That’s how they're learned. But once you have mastery of a skill or a concept, make it your own. Interpret it as you will. Mold that new skill to whatever whims you want. Just because everyone runs a race one way, doesn’t mean that you have to. Experiment with your strategy, your preparation and your execution. That’s where the joy of real discovery lies.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This one little man is changing my life every day. I just have to remember to keep on learning from him and appreciate every moment.
- Christian