jump in the mud.

On one of Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory podcasts, Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about witnessing a mother and her 3 or 4-year-old kid walking through central park on a rainy day.

There was a big juicy and muddy puddle right in front of the kid and Tyson remembered thinking to himself: “please let the kid jump in the puddle.” 

And what did the mother do? She pulled the kid back and prevented her daughter from jumping in that puddle. 

“That”, according to Tyson, “was a bit of curiosity in that moment that was extinguished.”

There will be plenty of instances where your peers will caution you to not jump into the mud. They might say things like: 

“You’re too far along your career to be thinking about changing professions.”

“You can only be successful if you do this thing or that thing, but don’t even think about doing the other thing” 

Indulging in your curiosity might feel strange if you, like many, have been pulled away from the mud over and over again. 

But understand that it’s never too late. 

Change careers, pursue that business idea you have, climb the other mountain, make art — jump in the mud. 

You are not obligated to live your life in the way others expect you to. 

This is one of my favorite podcast episodes. I loved that example. Sadly I think too many parents don't have enough creative-openness to seeing it the way 
Neil deGrasse Tyson
does. Maybe it's similar to how survival instincts cause so many modern problems (overeating,etc) it causes parenting issues as well (always thinking one little thing is the end of the world)
2021-05-14 22:19:38