Visiting my cousins yesterday for Easter, made me realize how difficult it must have been for us to learn to do anything. I don't mean that in a bad way. For instance, I was trying to help my little cousin learn how to swing. He told me "I've tried that so many times at school before," and then "but I can swing if you push me." Even after he insisted that he couldn't pump the swing himself, I tried to convince him to do it, and I tried to demonstrate. He attempted it a couple of times, and it was almost painful for me to watch how close he was to getting it right. He had the motions down, but just not the physics. I eventually resorted to pushing him on the swing instead, but it made me think back to when I was little and how hard it was for me to learn these things.
I remember being at school, and how the sole purpose of my recess existence was to be able to skip a bar on the monkey bars. Doing them one by one was hard enough, but skipping one was even harder. I remember all of the countless times I fell in the dirt, all of the bruises and blisters on my hands from doing them over and over again. It took me the longest time to get the hang of it.
Riding a bike was the same way. It took me so long to learn to ride it without falling over, and I acquired many cuts and scrapes in the process. But eventually, with time and practice, I was able to do it.
Now, of course, we take these basic things for granted and it is hard to understand how anyone could not know how to do them. In reality though, our ability to gain these skills is quite miraculous. And now, every grueling step we take toward whatever goal we seek should also be counted as just as amazing.
