Lessons from Babies

I am currently in a parenting class. (Sidenote: If you have not gone to college or haven't in several years you might have forgotten the idea of taking sociology classes to get easy A's.) Last night while I was doing my reading for the week on infants from birth to two years old, I came across something that resonated with me, and I knew I had to share it. The section describes how babies enjoy making things happen and exercising their skills. It goes on to say that they are unconcerned with failures; they work so hard to master skills like crawling or walking, never becoming discouraged or giving up. Not only do they have no use for failure, but they also eschew other people's reactions. Babies don't make value judgments about their own actions, and even once they do develop standards for behavior, their main focus is still on the delight of doing a task or performing an action.

This is so amazing. Babies, the least skilled and lowest-performing of all types of humans, have mastered what so many of us try to regain: the abilities to turn a blind eye to failure and to disregard others' opinions. I wonder how much more I could achieve if my energy were not completely expunged simply thinking of all the varied ways I could fall on my face. What must it be like to have such intense focus that no reaction any other person could have could steal it from you? These qualities- self-confidence, perseverance, blind ambition- can seem so out-of-reach, but virtually all of us were born with them, right from the start. Isn't it amazing?