Think About It!

"Go get your Rapunzel costume," I told my youngest daughter this morning.

"No, Mommy.  I'm not wearing it.  I want to be a cheerleader today."

I was mildly irritated.  I spent a pretty penny on Rapunzel, and this was the second day in a row Cari Jill had had the opportunity to get our money's worth.  Instead, she decided to be something else, simply because she could.

Because Rapunzel was for Halloween.
And anyway she couldn't dance in Rapunzel.
And she didn't want to use bobby pins to attach the wig to her head.
And it was hard to buckle the car seat in that big dress.
And she didn't want to step on the hem during the school's parade of costumes. 

Obviously, she had really thought through the costume dilemma.

As the little cowboys, pirates, firefighters, princesses, doctors, and cheerleaders filed past, I smiled and waved.  Their precious costumes brought back fond memories of my older children and my childhood.  Dressing up and pretending to be something awesome made for adventurous times.

My rugrats began planning their elaborate ensembles at the beginning of September.  And it's no wonder.  Almost as soon as summer ended, the dentist, teachers, neighbors, and even the family exterminator began asking them what they planned to be. Similarly, when someone meets my kids for the first time, a common question is often, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  And now that I'm a grown-up one of the first questions strangers ask me is, "So, what do you do"?

I hate that question, and it's not because I don't have an answer.  I certainly DO!  I'm an investment manager, mentor,  professor, personal chef, innovator, and change agent.  What I do on a daily basis impacts the future of infinite generations.  So it's not what I DO that leaves me stuttering; it's explaining what I do.  You see, what I do is intentional, intuitive, purposeful, and most of all, reflective.

Notice that I said REFLECTIVE, not reflexive. 

How we think and what we think about determines who we will become in a world that defines us primarily by what we do.

Our thoughts are private, secret waterfalls.  They build strength as information assimilation accumulates.  Our dreams can alter our belief system to direct the progress of our lives.   That's why our family spends time talking about the issues that affect us.  We ask questions like:

Why?
How?
Tell me more.

Do we always get back an answer that we like?  Heck, sometimes I don't get an answer at all!  But I'll take a mumble or a grunt for now.  These kids are my work in progress.   It's unacceptable to say, "I don't know."  That phrase is akin to "I don't think".    And I know that's not true.  Kids are always thinking.  Sometimes, I bet their little noggins are whispering, "My mother's a lunatic."  Oh, well, I'll take it.  At least they're thinking.

Our brain consists of about one billion neurons. Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other neurons, amounting to more than a trillion connections. If each neuron could only help store a single memory, running out of space would be a problem. You might have only a few gigabytes of storage space, similar to the space in an iPod or a USB flash drive. Yet neurons combine so that each one helps with many memories at a time, exponentially increasing the brain’s memory storage capacity to something closer to around 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes). For comparison, if your brain worked like a digital video recorder in a television, 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows. You would have to leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years to use up all that storage.  (http://blog.growingleaders.com/leadership/help-my-brain-is-full/)  Wow!  There's no excuse for not being able to think!

Our kids can be anything they want, but I just want them to be able to think.  I want them to work hard to understand the world, to discover ways to make it better, to be brave enough to implement their ideas, and strong enough to innovate when failure prevails.  Cari Jill changed her mind about her costume.  I'm glad.  She just proved to me that she knows how to think.  She's not afraid to share her opinion.  She's human.  Her ability to DO is magnified because of her capacity to THINK.