You don’t need me to tell you that children are very impressionable. They imprint on pretty much everything that you say and do. You set their standards. You establish what is normal, what is acceptable, what they should tolerate, what they should seek for fulfilment in their lives.
They see the world first through your eyes. They understand the world first through your frame. They define the world first through everything that you tell them, everything that you show them.
You don’t need me to tell you this. You certainly already know it.
I was thinking about this back when each of our boys was little, fresh and impressionable. I knew that whatever they saw me do, they would think is normal, expected, how life works. If a dog came up to them and I panicked, they would know to panic when a dog comes up to them. If I held the door for their mother, they would know to hold the door for their future significant other. If I approached each set back that life so often throws at us with despair, they would learn that setbacks produce despair, rather than opportunities to approach the future in a slightly different way.
In this vein, I frequently told the boys, “Every day you hear geese, it is a good day. And every day you see geese, it is a great day.” The boys were raised on this mantra. It was doctrine in our house, so much so that if you happened to hear geese, you would stop everything and you would listen and immediately search the skies to see if you could watch them in flight. And if you saw them, you would stand perfectly still and take them in as they flew past you until they were completely out of sight.
And after that experience, after holding still and beholding that moment, you would quote the mantra with whomever was with you. “Every day you hear geese, it is a good day. And every day you see geese, it is a great day.” Followed with, “It’s going to be a great day.”
Only then would you resume whatever it was that you had been doing.
Children are very impressionable. They imprint on pretty much everything that you say and do. You set their standards. You establish what they should seek for fulfilment in their lives.
In setting our boys’ standards, in helping them find fulfilment by looking for geese, here’s the big reveal, we live just a few blocks from a small lake where whole flocks of Canadian Geese gather and live through all but the deepest winter months. We are pretty much guaranteed to hear geese most days. We are pretty much guaranteed to see geese quite often. Geese are a constant in our lives. In my mind, giving the boys this mantra, impressing upon them this doctrine made it more likely that they would have a mindful moment many times during the week where they would stop and reflect that the day was good and perhaps even that the day was great.
The boys have grown up now. They’ve moved on to their respective homes. I know that still, to this day, they stop when they hear geese and they look to the skies and they know the day is good. And when they see them, they know the day is great.
And I’m hopeful that they are creating a new mantra, a new doctrine, that serves them and their children, that helps instill the same fulfilment in their children, adjusted to the opportunities that surround them.
No matter your location, no matter your circumstance, life can be intentional. Life can be mindful. Life can be quite purposeful.
What do you choose to remind you that today is a great day?