Hide and Go Seek...

Each summer, I couldn’t hide my excitement to take the 3-hour road trip to East Texas to reconnect with all of my cousins who knew me as the “city kid” who didn’t like “country food!” Nevertheless, they accepted me despite the “formal” way that I talked and my insistence on putting on shoes as we ran down the rural dirt roads of Moss Hill, Texas in 100-degree heat.  

One of my fondest memories was when night fell and all my cousins would gather to play “Hide-In-Da-Bee-Bye” or otherwise known as “Hide and Seek.”

5-10-15-20-25...I’m not going to count but one more time!

We would play at my grandmother’s house which was in a wooded area and as you can imagine, I was terrified of going around the back of the house to seek out my cousins. However, I was anxious to show that I could hang with the big kids and I would make a half-hearted attempt to tag my cousins despite the thoughts of the “boogeyman” lurking in the woods or slipping in the seepage of the septic tank that was nearby.

The events of the past several months have been disorienting, to say the least. I continue to experience a myriad of emotions as I talk to family, friends, and co-workers. The temptation is to throw the covers over my head because the weight is heavy and let someone else deal with it.  

However, I still have that small voice in my head saying “Are You Going to Hide or Seek?”

No matter what path you select on this life journey, there are both intended and unintended consequences that you could not have possibly seen lurking around the corner. 

I Want To Win

Recently, I was speaking with a highly driven colleague about her expectations and she said “I Want To Win!” I know, please stop the eye-roll, because I had the same reaction. However, as I thought about it later, I got a little giddy because I think most of us started out wanting to win from a young age, but we got derailed in this game called life. Remember “Duck, Duck, Goose?” How did it make you feel that you were always tapped on the head as the Goose?

In order to bounce back from disappointments, it is essential that you have both cheerleaders and truthtellers to hold you accountable. My mom has been one of those individuals who continues to inspire me to keep pressing when it would be just easier to hide and not seek. It is essential that these individuals be credible or have some “street cred.”  

For example, after countless attempts to get an 8-foot long couch through the door of our guest room, my mom devised a plan for my brother and me to go outside and snake the couch through a window to get it in the room because you guessed it...she wanted to “Win!”

My Granny Said...

After a long day of furniture shopping, my wife, mom, and young daughter who was 4 years old at the time made their final stop at the last store. My mom asked the salesperson a rather innocuous question and the gentleman gave a quick reply. When he left the room to get some additional information, my mom whispered to my wife “He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about!”

After about 10 more minutes and my daughter getting more and more agitated, the salesperson returned to the room to continue to make unfounded claims and my daughter was having none of it and blurts out... 

“My granny said, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”  

Mortified, my wife quickly took my daughter’s hand and ushered her out of the store.  

You may not have a snotty nose kid challenge you on some trivial information, but you will always have naysayers who challenge critical decisions that you’ve made in your life. 

It’s quite alright though because you chose to seek rather than hide. Seeking will always come at a cost, but I will encourage you to consider in your calculus that if you hide, there is never an upside and you'll forever be the Goose! Now Go!