There are things that, as children, seem hard to us, but once we have grown and understand the process, we wonder how we ever struggled with it.
There are other things that it seems the childhood innocence allows us to do that adulthood causes us to question or second-guess ourselves.
The situation that sparked this topic for me:
As I was sitting outside of a shop for my milkshake order to come out I watched as several kids played on a primitive playground. Two girls, one boy. It seemed that the girls knew each other but the boy was just a kid who wanted to play games with anyone who would pass by.
One of the “playground equipment” pieces was three mushroom looking things, all spaced a few feet apart at different heights. I watched as these three children played a game where they would each stand on a mushroom and jump to the one to the right of them. The catch was that since there were three mushrooms and three kids, they depended on the other kid to jump at the same time that they did.
It was interesting to see the personalities of these kids come through even in a simple game like this. One of the girls was quite timid and it seemed, whether because of the space in between the mushrooms or the fact that someone was on the mushroom she was going to be jumping to, she couldn’t quite bring herself to jump when the other to children would say 3, 2, 1, JUMP!
The little boy who was on the mushroom to the left of her was determined to make this game work at any cost. It seemed to be his brainchild and he had to make it work. Because of this, it didn’t matter whether the girl in front of him jumped or not, he was going to make it to the next mushroom. He would jump when the first girl wouldn’t and because of this, cause a collision in which they would both end up on the ground (which I presume was one of the main no no’s of the game).
The third child, another girl, seemed to be fairly quiet. This little boy who came and inserted himself into these two girls playing seemed to be the leader now and she didn’t seem to be thrilled with it but was willing to play along. When they said jump, she jumped where he was and because of the above, almost always was the only one standing on a mushroom at the end of one of their jumps.
While a simple game, it has a certain level of trust. For instance, in the real world, would something like that look like people working on a team until one of them realizes they can have all the glory if they purposely block someone off? When humans have something going on under their control, they almost always find a way to ruin it.
Does the timid girl tend to not be a risk-taker for the rest of her life?
So much of how we are raised and grow up shape the way that we think and act for the rest of our life. Some of that can be changed, but others not.
What are some bad habits or tendencies that you may have that you don’t think about too often? How might that affect your personal and professional life?
The simple game of children, when over-analyzed enough, can turn into great analogies for the complex game played by adults.