August 25th, 2009 by maurice

I took my son to see his grandmother last week who we both love dearly. During our visit I found myself impatiently snapping at this lovely fragile old lady purely because of my frustration and annoyance at her complaining and absent mindedness.

When my son and I returned to the car to travel home he gave me that disapproving teenage look which clearly suggested he wasn’t happy and that I had done something  very wrong. Of course I immediately asked him what the problem was only for him to tell me that he was disappointed with me for snapping at his grandmother and that he felt it unnecessary.

I  instantly felt very guilty and turned to him to say ’so what you are saying is that I need to try harder….’ to which he replied, ‘no dad, you just don’t get it, you don’t need to try harder, you just need to try’

Well this shiny bullet of wisdom pierced my consciousness so hard that I spent the rest of the day and indeed week thinking about the reprimand given to me by my 15 year old son.

Of course he was right, I didn’t need to try harder at all I just need to try. It seems to me that sometimes that’s all we need to do ‘try’.  Way, way before ever needing to think about trying harder  we just need to begin, we need to give it a go, we need to try.

How many of us give up on our dreams, our aspirations, our goals by not even trying. Whether that goal is to be a more patient and attentive son, father, husband, wife, daughter or mother or whether it’s to lose weight, change jobs, get the car, home, money, freedom, peace or harmony – when did we give up trying. Perhaps we may not even have started yet!

Sometimes we don’t need to try harder we just need to try.