Imagine a kiddie pool. The little, blue, thin plastic ones all stacked up in front of Wal-mart. It was always such a treat when my mom brought our pool out for the summer. My brother and I would sit out in the backyard, donning our swim diapers, splashing in the five inches of water the pool allowed. It was the best.
Now, imagine a battleship. Not a little one. Not the board game. No, a legitimate USS Alabama battleship, with iron-clad sides and hundreds of little portholes dotting along the perimeter.
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What if that massive battleship fell out of the sky and landed right on the sweet little kiddie pool?
Pure, unabridged destruction.
Imagine a vast ocean, like the ones you see in travel magazines. The water is clear and clean, there isn't a cloud in the sky and the same battleship falls. But, the ocean is able to withstand the impact. Sure, there will be a giant splash, plenty of waves and it will take awhile to settle down, but all in all, the water is OK. The battleship is fine, and you're floating on a raft wearing a wide-brimmed hat, drinking a mimosa.
I had a conversation recently with a mentor of mine, and she provided this somewhat silly, but quite telling example. Sometimes, we can't get past the kiddie pool. We say, "No, I am busy enough. I can't take anymore," and when a battleship falls, whether it be pain, anxiety, depression or frustration, our kiddie pool is destroyed. We decide early on that we can only handle so much, and when something out of the blue hits, everything we built up in our kiddie pool is no longer a priority.
Instead, we want to be an ocean. Yes, battleships hit, and when they do, there will be surf, but that should not discourage us to continue on. To try out for the team, to interview for the position, to take opportunities that would have seemed practically impossible had we been a kiddie pool.
I am still working to become an ocean. To be honest, some days, I feel like a puddle, and other days, the Pacific. The battleships won't change, but how much water we allow, will.
