Digging

Son, 9, had  a chance to go do something the parents thought he would enjoy. His first reaction was I don't want to. We were puzzled. How come. His second reaction was I don't want to. His last reaction was I don't want to. No matter how much discussion, digging out reasons, he could not tell why not. 

I could see there are many emotions involved. Most likely there isn't just one reason but many. Based of his previous experiences I could think quite a few that might be reasons. But he wouldn't fully agree on any of them. Some were perhaps, perhaps not, perhaps a little bit. He was quite agitated by not really knowing himself why, but feeling very strongly about it. 

Finally we stopped digging, boy and me. Never got to the bottom. Perhaps one day he'll know why. But I hope he got a feeling that it is important to try to understand why we do things and why we don't. Why we want to do something and why we don't. Why we feel the way we do. 

There are many things in life that prevent us from doing things we might enjoy or might be good for us. Often it's fear, perhaps based on previous experiences, sometimes it's wrong images of ourselves and our capacities. To live a full and satisfactory life it is important to try figure out those things that prevent us from thriving. And then do something about them.