[00:05.58]One afternoon, many years ago, I went to pick up my mother from work.
[00:10.62]I got there a little early so I parked the car by the curb,
[00:14.59]across the street from where she worked, and waited for her.
[00:18.17]As I looked outside the car window to my right,
[00:21.67]there was a small park where I saw a little boy,
[00:24.52]around one and a half to two years old,
[00:26.97]running freely on the grass as his mother watched from a short distance.
[00:31.84]The boy would then fall to the grass, get up,
[00:35.34]and without hesitation or without looking back at his mother,
[00:38.63]run as fast as he could, again, still with a smile on his face,
[00:43.03]as if nothing had happened.
[00:44.75]When they fall down, kids don’t perceive their falling down as failure,
[00:49.68]but instead, they treat it as a learning experience,
[00:52.69]as just another result or outcome.
[00:55.48]They feel compelled to try and try again until they succeed.
[00:59.63]The reason must be...
[01:02.31]they have not associated“falling down”with the word“failure”yet,
[01:06.53]thus they don’t know how to feel the state which accompanies failure.
[01:10.46]As a result, they are not disempowered in any way.
[01:14.08]Plus, they probably think to themselves
[01:16.97]that it’s perfectly Okay to fall down,
[01:19.12]that it’s not wrong to do so.
[01:21.08]In other words, they give themselves permission to make mistakes, subconsciously.
[01:26.55]Thus they remain empowered.
[01:28.52]While I was touched by the boy’s persistence,
[01:31.86]I was equally touched by the manner in which he ran.
[01:34.53]With each attempt, he looked so confident...so natural.
[01:38.69]No signs of fear, nervousness, or of being discouraged—
[01:42.68]as if he didn’t give a care about the world around him.
[01:46.02]His only aim was to run freely and to do it as effectively as he could.
[01:51.05]He was just being a child—just being himself—being completely in the moment.
[01:56.64]He was not looking for approval or was not worrying about
[02:00.80]whether someone was watching or not.
[02:02.87]He wasn’t concerned about being judged.
[02:05.61]He didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that maybe someone would see him fall.
[02:10.42]No, all that mattered to him
[02:12.90]was to accomplish the task or activity at hand to the best of his ability.
[02:17.54]To run...and to feel the experience of running fully and freely.
[02:22.68]I learned a lot from that observation and experience,
[02:26.50]and have successfully brought that lesson with me in my many pursuits in life.
