The Game Is the Whole Point

Last week, I had my last “Daddy Day” with my five-year-old.

This school year, my wife and I set out a plan where, every Wednesday, I would have a one-on-one day with my oldest son. 

He's five, he's going to kindergarten in the fall, and I realized this was really the last opportunity I'm going to have for regularly scheduled one-on-one time with him. We actually paid more money and moved the schedule around so the twins would have coverage, so I would have that one-on-one day with him. 

Last week was our last Wednesday together for the school year. We'll still have one-on-one days, but it's not going to be the same. 

So, we tried to have the quintessential Daddy Day. We went to the playground, went on a hike and we finished the day with ice cream. 

But right before the ice cream was his kindergarten orientation. I dropped him off in the school pickup line, and I picked him back up an hour and a half later.

It was a bittersweet day for me because I think that there's something about being a parent where you want your kids to grow up and feel capable and like they can go take on the world and at the same time, you want them to stay little. 

I don't know if I'll ever have a time like this again with him. There's moments where I wonder if I took full advantage of the opportunity, like maybe I left a little bit on the table. But at the same time, I'm incredibly grateful that I was able to have this, that we were able to have this. 

I hope, and the plan is, that I'll be able to do it with my twins for the next couple of years before they go off to kindergarten. 

But with my oldest, it's a little odd to know that this part of his childhood is really coming to an end. And, as long as every day feels, I don't know how we got to five years and kindergarten so fast.

And, I think that there's something there as a reminder that every day can feel hard, but we look back at how quickly those string together, it can go pretty quick.

So I had this realization on Wednesday: the game is the whole point. 

Right after lunch, we made a telescope out of a paper towel roll and a toilet paper roll taped together. 

We literally spent 20 minutes where I would look at him through it and I would say, "Wow, you're so close!" 

Then I would drop it and say, "Oh, my gosh, how did you get so far away?!" 

He laughed his fool, little head off every single time and said, "Daddy, do it again." 

For 20 minutes. 

And then we got up and I started chasing him around our house. And, listen, he's getting quick, but I can catch him. But where's the fun in catching him right away? 

The fun is me chasing him and him giggling as I chase him and me saying, "I'm going to get you." And so I kept on letting him be out in front of me because the game was the point. 

And I think kids just inherently get that, that the play, the process, the doing it is the fun. 

And the only times that my kids really do get upset when they're playing is when they have an outcome in their mind and it's not happening.

That’s when they get frustrated.

And entitlement is the lack of ability to deal with frustration.

Kids get entitled when they don't have the ability to deal with being frustrated because things have always been removed from them in terms of frustration.

Like he was trying to build something yesterday and he was having a hard time making it happen, and then he was getting upset. There's a trend going around social media right now that I almost forgot that this is the whole point. It's a video of the mundane daily activities that are actually the sweetest part. I do think that as adults, we forget the wonder of embracing the process. We're so fixated on the outcome, on the result, on what's going to happen, that we miss the fact that doing it is the whole thing. When we get fixated on the outcome, everything that we do until we achieve it feels like it's not enough. Then when we achieve it, we inevitably are disappointed because we've been striving for it for so long, and it wasn't everything we possibly imagined. Hitting your goal weight on the scale is not going to change anything. But the process of doing everything that you need to do in order to lose the weight to feel your best is actually going to make you feel your best. Losing the weight is the byproduct of the process. Because here's the secret. It's never done.

You're going to do the things that you need to do to lose the weight for the rest of your life. So, stop trying to win the game and just embrace the fact that you get to play it.

I heard someone say this on a podcast today, talking about parenting and how So they've never learned to just sit with the hard. I think that's why people struggle so much with losing weight in their fitness journey is because we haven't learned the ability to be frustrated and that that is a normal feeling. Because we don't like being uncomfortable, we don't like the struggle, we look for the quick fix or the thing that's going to happen right away. And when it inevitably doesn't work, we're left feeling frustrated and we don't know how to deal with it. And this is what she said about parenting, and I think it's the translation over to the fitness industry. We have to train our ability to be frustrated. We have to train that in our kids and we have to train it in ourselves. We have to train the ability to struggle, to do hard things, and have it feel normal. Because if we're left in a position where we're feeling frustrated or we're feeling uncomfortable, and it's a totally new feeling for us, and we haven't ever felt that way, we are going to feel dysregulated.

We're going to get out of source, and we're going to look for the quick fix and the quick solution. And that's where we end up with entitled kids or entitled adults who just expect to lose the weight right away. So how do we do this in practice? You have to voluntarily do hard things and expect and embrace the fact that it's going to be hard. And to remember that the hard is the whole point. So go do something hard today. And let me know down in the comments what you're planning to do for accountability. And also, because I could use some ideas.