"A Good Day is When...Life Lessons From a Teen."

Wayne and I have been "teen sitting" for the past few days for the newly turned 14 year old son of my cousin. If you recall, I talked about celebrating Jake's birthday last week and how we much we enjoyed it.
I've had quite a bit of one-on-one time with Jakob these past few days, which has been great. It's been a while since I've had an opportunity to spend time with a teenager at all, much less a young man. Marah is now 22 so, it has been a long time.
In taking Jake to school and picking him up, we've had time to chat a plenty. Today, when I picked Jake up from school, I asked how his day went. He replied, "Good." I thought for a minute and wondered what constituted a "good" day in the life of a teenage boy. I figured several things might be options...he passed a test, a cute girl grinned at him, he learned about a "good" video game...who knew? So, I asked just that. "Jake, what constitutes a good day?"
His answer was stunning and profound.
Jake kind of shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, a good day is when nothing bad happens."
I hardly knew what to say.
A good day is when nothing bad happens. Profound.
I told Jakob immediately that he had just given me a blog topic. He laughed and wondered why. I felt a little silly telling him that it was almost too deep to explain because us crazy adults just don't "get it!" The simplicity of his comment was perfect. It was said with such innocence and yet such maturity.
I am not sure we listen closely enough to our youth. Perhaps they give clipped one word answers, perhaps they give big long dissertations on movies that would scare me senseless (he described a couple of those for me too!), but I learned something of great value from a 14 year old today. As adults, we project "what might happen, what could happen, we forecast early disappointments based on fear, and other factors. We give credence to unwarranted worries and things we can do nothing about.
We focus too little on all the good that goes on in the midst of the "bad" that hasn't happened yet.
Interesting twist, huh? I'm know I'm guilty as charged.
I'm going to see what kind of a GOOD DAY I can have tomorrow. Jake made it sound easy, so this ol' gal is going to give it a shot.
"A good day is when nothing bad happens." -Jakob Womack
It's a keeper quote! Use it often!

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