WORK, NAP, PLAY – repeat, then repeat again
Monday, August 24, 2020
Motivation resembles that tightly wound rubber band on a child’s toy – once released, it makes something spin or fly. We giggle and watch, but then that toy stops, hits ground or furniture, and then it’s time to do it again.
Repeat until child is exhausted or distracted by another toy.
If we chased every opportunity, we would be continuously exhausted – we would need lots of naps and early bedtime, as every five-year-old does.
Have we become different in terms of managing our momentum or loss of motivation, waiting for someone to shout “Squirrel” so we can race off in another direction?
Every five-year-old knows that he can keep playing with the same toy, or invent a new game with or without another toy, with or without a playing partner. The five-year-old knows when he’s tired too tired or cranky to keep playing – then his mom puts him down for a nap. When he gets up, he’s ready to play again. He doesn’t know anything about COVID, or pandemics, or impacts of a recession. He has plenty of time to learn about those issues, but for the moment, he wants to play every day.
Let’s play and invent new games, let’s live like and work like five-year-olds. We cannot be five again, but sometimes we need to play and nap as if we were. If you get too weary, you can nap, and then get up off the mat to play some more.
Recent economic and pandemic events have put a lot of us on the sidelines, on the couch, or knocked us onto the mat. Naptime is over, time to get up.