8Managing Contrasts
‘If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.’
— Anne Bradstreet
One evening, as I prepared a bath for my sons, I ran my hand through the water to test the temperature. As I did, I observed the wave that I created. I called my sons to come and have a look. I asked them to watch the wave as I swished the water left and right. They looked at me the way they often do when I impart a lesson – with part tolerance, part amusement. I asked if they believed the bath contained just one body of water. Encouraged by their nodding heads, I demonstrated how even though it is the same body of water, it is both high and low at the same time. The wave has a crest and trough simultaneously.
‘The water is like life’, I said, ‘the top of the wave represents the good experiences in our lives, and we must be grateful for and enjoy those times. But’, I continued, ‘just as we enjoy good experiences at the crest of the wave, we encounter bad days and disappointments in the trough. The secret is to manage the times at the bottom and enjoy the times at the top’. Lesson over, I looked at my older son, who nodded in acknowledgment. As I turned to my younger son, his eyes remained fixed on the bobbing wave. Excitedly, he exclaimed, ‘Will you put me in there and do that?’ and so I did.
About a month later, my older son broke his arm in a fall from the trampoline. When I asked how he was, he ...
Get Undisruptable now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
