When I was a child, I considered myself a bit of a “tom-boy”. I played basketball with the boys, collected matchbox cars with my brother, and did not mind getting dirty building forts in the forrest out in the back of my house. Recently I reflected on how that impacts me today.
When I was about 10 years old I lived in up-state New York. It was a rural area with one school that spanned kindergarten to twelfth grade. Behind our house we had a small forest where I could build forts with my brother and sister, apple trees that we could climb and pick and eat fresh apples, and a wide field that if we crossed it we would find a creek filled with all kinds of adventures. In this creek we could cool off during a hot summers day, or skate on in the dead of winter. But during the spring, this creek was filled with salamanders, tadpoles, fish, and frogs.
One day during one of our spring adventures, my brother, sister and I crossed the field to the creek with an empty bucket. We were on a mission to catch some frogs. I don’t really recall why we wanted to catch frogs, but I remember we were pretty excited to make the effort. After what I remember now as half of the day catching frogs, we headed home with twenty-one frogs in our bucket that we had to take turns carrying (remember I was only ten, my brother was eight, and my sister twelve).
When we arrived home, much to our dismay our mother was not as excited by our bountiful, slimy, squirming, hopping treasure. She insisted that we return the frogs to their home in the creek. As we set back carrying our bucket only to dump the frogs back in the creek, we were disappointed, but still proud of our days accomplishment.
As I reflect on that day and that time of my life, I recognize many valuable lessons. First, we felt like winners, we accomplished our goal, shared our wealth, celebrated the win, and in the end triumphantly did the right thing by the frogs. We demonstrated tremendous perseverance for a few small children, it took a lot of effort to catch so many frogs in such a short time. We demonstrated that we were not afraid to get our hands dirty. This is probably my favorite lesson of all, I realize that my entire life I have not been apprehensive to taking on dirty jobs to accomplish my goals.
As I got older I did a lot of baby sitting in my teens, changing dirty diapers for one dollar per hour. My first real job came before I was sixteen working in a meat market. Here I cut, cubbed, ground, and skinned meat and fish on the weekends. As I entered college I worked in a hospital helping nurses clean bed pans and changing sheets. Finally as I entered my practice of occupational therapy after graduating college, I treated adults and children working on bathing, grooming, toileting, dressing, and much more. All of these jobs were challenging and rewarding, and I learned so much about the value of hard work and getting your hands dirty.
Now I realize that all of that hard, dirty, time consuming, dedicated work has made me a tenacious and fearless leader. I am not afraid to get my hands dirty and do the hard work required to accomplish my goals. So if you want to get to the finish line, maybe you have to first not be afraid to catch a few frogs?