I was catching myself saying a lot of don’ts to Issa:
“Don’t climb the table!”
“Don’t run around with a pen!”
“Don’t put that in your mouth!”
I had an epipheby: If I keep telling Issa what NOT to do, he won’t actually learn what TO do.
In this picture, rather than telling him “don’t climb the table,” I said, “let’s go climb Pineapperu” (what he calls this giant pineapple in Japanese accent 😊).
It occurred to me that we make the same mistake in life too, sometimes.
We think of the things we don’t want — extra weight, more work, toxic friends.
Instead, we can frame the same things as things we do want — more health, more autonomy, new friends.
Because, like for Issa, learning what to do is much more helpful than focusing on what not to do.
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