First, a backstory on how this mindset came to be for me.
It started when my wife and I were expecting our first child. If you are not yet a parent, I will play spoiler and let you know that everyone will come out of the woodwork and feel obligated to give you unsolicited advice, followed up by letting you know how hard it’s going to be. Everybody.
“It’s so hard. You can’t prepare for it…”
“Enjoy your sleep now because you won’t get any for 3 months…”
“They just cry all the time and you never know why…”
And they’ll always follow up it by softening the blow by saying something like…
“Oh, but it’s totally worth it and your kid will be so cute!”
I took this a few different ways, but my first thought was “just because it is hard for you doesn’t necessarily mean it will be hard for us.” We may read more books, have better coaching, exhibit more discipline or really anything that can make our experience easier. This is ignorant though. I don’t know how much they prepared, how much they read or how much discipline they exhibited. What if they were the ones that were more prepared AND it was still a lot of work?
This lead me to a better thought. A better mindset.
“We get to do this”
We get to be parents. We get to go through the hardships. We get to wake up at 3am to see if our daughter is okay. We get to listen to them cry and try to communicate with us.
Sure, there’s a lot of responsibility that comes with the territory. A lot of work. Perhaps a lot of sleepless nights. But we get to bear the responsibility, do the work and stay awake with them.
I don’t have to wake up at 3am to see if my daughter is okay. I get to.
There are a lot of great couples out there that aren’t lucky enough to be parents naturally. They would give anything to be able to wake up at 3am to tend to a daughter. To trade their weekends in for parenthood. And unfortunately, they don’t get to. We’re lucky. We do. And we will remember that even when times are tough and challenging. We will do our best to not take that for granted.
But this isn’t specific to parenthood. I get to do a lot of things that may otherwise seem burdensome.
Running. I’m able bodied, in decent shape, joints are in operating order… There are a lot of people who physically can’t run and they would give anything to be able to do so.
Work. I’m lucky enough to live in America, have enough financial freedom to start a business and have the cognitive faculties to be successful. Everyone has those days where they don’t want to work, but I like to remind myself that I get to work.
Just changing my mentality from “have to” –> “get to” has changed a lot for me. It reminds me to be grateful in moments where it not immediately apparent.
Dave Emerson 