Life is like...a parent and child...

Life is like…a parent and child getting ready to leave the house in the morning.

When getting ready to leave the house in the morning, the parent knows that he should put a jacket on his daughter to ensure her warmth. Although the daughter knows that it is time to leave, she is unwilling to put on the jacket and consequently chooses to run away from her parent. The parent follows her with the jacket, around corners and through various rooms of the house until the child backs herself into a corner and has nowhere left to go. She cooperates and puts on the jacket. Following multiple occasions of backing herself into a corner, the child cooperates in the beginning because she realizes that, ultimately, her parent will put the coat on her. She realizes that running away from her parent results in the expense of unnecessary effort.

In life, we often find ourselves playing the role of the parent and the child. At times, when we know that we are capable of completing a task, we act as the parent acted in this scenario and persevere until the task is completed, until the jacket is put on. In other scenarios, however, we play the role of the child and try to avoid certain inevitable circumstances, and no matter which way we turn or how fast we go, the circumstance that is meant to happen to us will happen, as we will eventually back ourselves in a corner. We can choose to avoid or reject the inevitable when we are in the corner, but that only results in undue effort expended towards an entity or a force that will eventually prevail. In moments like these, we must accept the inevitable and utilize our energies toward efforts that contribute to the greater good. Too often, we find ourselves contesting circumstances that we are unable to control. When we focus our efforts on controlling the uncontrollable, we curb progression and may even prompt regression.

We must have the confidence to persevere through challenges that may appear unattainable on the surface, but also have the ability to identify circumstances that we cannot control and, in those instances, choose to expend our efforts on more productive tasks.