“Mom, can you please just come and look at our room before you say no.” Those were the exact words from my 6 year old yesterday morning. She and her older sister had decided to move things around their rooms and swap a few small furniture pieces. She came downstairs to tell me of their brilliant idea; she enthusiastically described the pieces they moved and their new location. She was proud and excited. My instant response without even thinking “for today, it can stay that way but everything needs to be put back when you’re done playing.”
Jumping to conclusions and saying no without fully understanding what they had done to their rooms was my first failure here. Not only that, I didn’t meet her enthusiasm, I didn’t reach her imagination and excitement. I jumped to an easier answer that required minimal effort on my part without even observing or even giving their hard work a chance, an opportunity to see if it even makes sense.
When she told me to take a look before saying no, that hit me instantly and made me realize how quickly I jumped to conclusions based on what I heard only, without having all the facts, at least the visual facts in this instance. I made bad assumptions instead of giving the girls a chance.
How often in life do you walk around saying no to different things before you have all the facts, before understanding the full picture? It’s so easy to say no instantly instead of taking a minute or two and acknowledging the possibilities. Instead of giving an opportunity a chance, we make unsupported assumptions and treat them as facts. Take a minute, evaluate your options before making a decision, and if no is the right path then make it, but don’t rush the answer without understanding the full picture that’s been painted in front of you.
