A couple days ago, my wife and I planned to have our family go to a local community event.
One of my young boys protested. Loudly. He just didn’t believe he’d enjoy himself.
Having seen this type of behavior plenty of times before, I gambled that he would have fun once we got there. So I didn’t give him the choice to opt-out.
To my relief, turns out he did have a good time. Afterwards, I had a short conversation with him, pointing all the cool activities he got to do. I wasn’t trying to rub it in. I simply observed that if he got his way and stayed home, he would have missed all the fun that I was unable to promise him up-front.
One day my son will learn that life has few guarantees. And that many times, opportunities are only available when we’re open to the possibility.