Our Great City

When we are kids, everyone tells us what to do. We long for the day we can make our own decisions about what to wear, what to eat and when to wake up. We graduate from the tricycle to the bicycle to a car as teenagers, feeling liberated by the breadth of possibilities before us.

Then work comes along and takes the place of our parents in telling us what to do. We get married and have kids, which although they are wonderful, further limit our options. What ever happened to the ideal of total freedom we had about adulthood? Sometimes it seems like we have fewer choices now than when we were kids.

It's easy to forget that, no matter how full or demanding our schedules become, our lives as adults are a direct result of the choices we've made. From careers to the debts we incur to the people we choose to spend our time with, we're hardly victims of circumstance, though sometimes it would be nice to pass off our situation as out of our control.

Perhaps the hardest part of freedom to swallow is the freedom to make mistakes. No one enjoys owning up to their goofs and blunders, but with freedom comes risk and accountability. This also applies to others, from employees to children, and even spouses. As people in positions of responsibility, it is not so much our job to ensure that those under our care never make mistakes. It's hard sometimes when it feels like someone else's error reflects on you, but those mistakes that don't kill have the potential to make us wiser.

Wisdom, after all, is not so much reflected by a life free of failure, but rather by a life absent of the fear of failing. Feel free to fail sometimes; it's part of life!

Sumitted by:  Laura Steves, PhD, PsyD