No legacy is so rich as honesty.
William Shakespeare
The other day, I was playing Liar, a cards game with my 8 year old daughter.
-‘Claudia, do you know we’ve been playing with the wrong rules?’
-‘What do you mean, daddy?’
-‘I just checked the Instructions Manual and mom got it wrong. Even if the game’s name is identical to that other cards game mommy and I used to play when we were younger, the rules of this Liar are totally different. Do you want me to explain them to you?‘
-‘Come ooon, dad. Not nooow, pleeease. Let’s go on plaaying…’
The problem with doing nothing is that you never know when you’re finished.
Groucho Marx
I took a deep breath, smiled to her and somehow, I was able to get her attention and told her.
–‘Got it, my girl?’, I asked her, when I thought it was clear enough.
–‘Ok, daddy; let’s give it a go, let’s do a trial game’
And so we played with the new rules. And she beat me! Suddenly, my wife’s voice came from upstairs:
-‘Claudia, your turn! Into the tub!’
A couple of minutes later, my 7 year old son, Javi, was descending the stairway, in his pyjamas and with his hair wet.
-‘Daddy, Claudia’s told me that you’ve been playing Liar with her with new rules. That we got it wrong with the old ones…’
-‘True enough, pal.’
-‘I wanna play with the new rules too. Show me’, said my son.
-‘Sure, buddy. Just a quick one before dinner, alright?’, I said, starting to shuffle the cards.
And I taught him the new rules.
A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for
Albert Einstein
And that’s how, once more, life reinforced my belief in patience, courage, in doing things right and not allowing laziness or inertia to get in the way of doing new things or doing them the right way. And that it can be contagious.
By the way, my children’s names are not Javi nor Claudia. I lied there 😉
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill
