ListenI went to Fort MacLeod, Alberta (pop: 3000) this week to deliver a Response Ability Pathways training. So what? Right? I agree. Why should anyone except me and the people who were there care at all. Well, no reason really.
As a part of preparing for the training, I decided to let the participants know that, when I was very little, I had lived in Fort MacLeod. And so I dug up an old picture of me and my older brother Jim in Fort MacLeod in 1949. Yup, I am that old – 949! That’s the year, not the address. Anyway, below is the picture of Jim and I when we lived there. It is the only one I have. It’s very Canadian, don’t you think.
That’s me in the bottom right corner – I do look like I wonder what the heck is going on – here and in life.
So what? Well, here is the thing.
As I prepared for this training, I kept going back to the picture because I was having trouble reconciling the image there (me as a puppy) with me as I know me today. I had a lot of trouble looking at the picture and saying something like, “Hey, look at me at age 2.5, or whatever I was!” I just could not connect that little kid with me.
Simple, maybe even stupid, but there you go.
You see ... it was me, but it is not me. It is me, but it is not me. That kid, I decided, could never turn out to be me. But he did. Weird, I thought.
In the end, after all my reflections on the “me, not me, who is he, etc” this is the only thing I am left with.
We really never do know who these kids are going to turn out to be, do we? I mean, really, who would have guessed? Not me, at that age. And, you know what? Not me now, either.
So, what about, I wonder out loud, the kids you are working with “who are they going to become? And what role will you play in that becoming?
Do you ever wonder about that?
I mean, there you are – you and that kid – and what you do can influence who that child will be all those years later. I think it is an awesome thought.
And potentially, at least, an awesome
responsibility.
Thom
