Are You Yellow?

A challenge is only as good as the person willing to accept it.

Last Thursday I was chasing my son around the couch. The dog got excited and knocked my son’s feet right from underneath him.

Smack! The sound echoed as he hit his head. I knew this wasn’t a normal smack. He started to cry, but it wasn’t the average cry like it should be. His eyes rolled around in his head some. He got lethargic and wasn’t quick to move around.

After about 10 minutes he threw up. My wife Michelle took him to the doctor after that. Everything was ok, but this incident put us in a bind.

We were supposed to leave that day to Flagstaff for a family field trip. After hitting his head the doctor recommended he not take the trip.

So we were presented with a challenge. Everybody stay at home or we split up.

Not a big deal except for the fact that my kids wanted me to make the trip. Which I’m not used to. My wife home schools and does all kinds of them. I, on the other hand, work most the time and don’t attend too many trips.

Making me a dad that feels more like a fish out of water.

But that’s how life works. It’s not perfect. It presents challenges to you. When they come up you have to decide what type of person you’re going to be.

Are you yellow or are you going to tackle this as you should?

I have to tell you my first instinct was to back down and take the easy path out. But for some time I have been working that out of my thought process.

Nothing is achieved at taking the easy way out. The easy way would have been another average day of me working and not spending quality time with my family.

By accepting the challenge I got to experience a day with my kids and see that giant tarantula up in the mountains. Which I had no idea could exist at that elevation.

Challenges in life always seem to look harder. They present so many more problems on the surface. What makes them tough is that we can’t see the rewards that are on the other side of them. Rewards that are far better than accepting what we already have.

This challenge taught me a lot. The question “Are you yellow?” made me think.

Are we scared of the challenge itself or is it the fear of letting go of the familiar?

Looking back it’s an easy question to answer.

Life without challenge is just an average life of the old familiar.