Tuesday, October 23, 2012

We can all learn from total lack of selfish desire.


             Birthdays are such a great event! We all have one and we all love it, to a point anyway. I am more into ignoring mine than celebrating or making a fuss about it but secretly I do like to feel special when my birthday rolls around. Kid’s birthdays are nearly the greatest day of the year. Three holidays in a kids mind are stand out awesome and those would be Christmas, Halloween, and the birthday. The one day everyone is celebrating you.  There are balloons, cake, ice cream, a party, favorite dinner, friends, and those ever amazing presents screaming your name and your name only.  Kids wonder if they have a present in there they have been begging for. Maybe a surprise present mom and dad said they would never buy. It’s just all around one of the greatest days of the year to a child.

                For my son it’s an entirely different story and as strong as I aim to be all three of these holidays can get me a down a bit. Yesterday was in fact Phillips third birthday and to be totally honest he didn’t recognize it. I actually don’t even know if he understands he is three years old. I like to think he does and I like to think he knew it was his day but all of the clues of the day pointed to he had no idea what was going on. He liked his balloons because they float that’s cool and he liked some of that nasty chocolate cake. I unwrapped his presents and he had almost no interest in the unwrapping process. It took him some time to even acknowledge the gifts and play with them. New things are so easily accepted. A hard thing for others to understand when a gift is presented to him, no matter how awesome it may be, it’s still new and out of the ordinary. I end up pushing it on him so the person who gave it to him feels like he likes it. A habit I am getting myself out of because it’s an issue that is only based on my concern and no one else’s.

                Even though he lacks the ability to get excited about his own birthday and it gets me down a bit there is the other side to it I appreciate in a huge way. He is a child who doesn’t require things to be happy. He doesn’t demand anything as far as material objects and even though he shows no interest right away he also doesn’t show disappointment if something isn’t what he thought it would be. Sometimes a kid gets a gift they don’t like and they let it be known but I don’t see that in him either. It’s all based on interest. There is no show if emotion regarding selfish desire. To me that is one of the inspiring things about him. Of course I want him to be excited about the holidays but there so much to learn from someone who isn’t capable of falling into the selfish desires of wanting to many things, even if he didn’t choose to be this way it’s something we all wish we could grasp one way or another. The ability to be happy with what you have and the only desire that ails you is to communicate how you feel. What if we all had just a little bit more of this in ourselves?

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