Day 21

Skin in the game

There’s an educational book for parents that starts with the testimony of a mother.

It goes like this:

I was a great mother before I had kids.

As human beings, we have this tendency to emulate scenarios in our minds and react to the world based on them.

I’m not a father, but I can project these different “movies” in my mind on how would I deal with a tantrum or sleeping 3 or 4 hours a night, convincing myself that I would handle it pretty well.

Is that true? I have no idea.

This tendency spreads across much more than just parenting, creating a gap between our self-image and actual reality.

Most people are convinced of their proficiency in a specific context until they actually need to live it. Everyone’s a pro until they have to get their own skin in the game.

The challenge to obtain wisdom is to experiment with as many things as possible or refrain from making judgments or presenting solutions to problems you’ve only experienced mentally.