“There’s a Frog In Our Tent!”
My family and I went camping last weekend. Overall, it was a really fun time, with one exception: on the first night, it rained–a lot.
Water began to make its way inside the tent, and my wife and I shifted things around to minimize the damage and discomfort. My son slept through the storms, but my daughter awakened almost immediately.
The three of us tried, with varying degrees of success, to return to sleep. Just as I was reaching that coveted destination, I heard my daughter’s frenzied voice say, “There’s a frog in our tent!”
I tried, in vain, to assure her that though she could hear the sounds of frogs and rain outside, it was impossible that a frog had entered our tent. She insisted, and so we changed the orientation of her sleeping bag so that her head was on the opposite side of where she thought she’d seen the frog.
I tucked her back in, and then, peeking out from over the edge of her covering, she said, “I’d feel better if you held my hand.”
I was tired, damp, and frustrated. I knew that trying to hold my daugther’s hand and sleep at the same time would be next to impossible. The truth was, I didn’t really want to hold her hand in that moment.
But I did.
“OK,” I smiled at her.
She wriggled her fingertips out of the top of the sleeping bag and I reached over to grab them.
An hour or two later, just after sunrise, I awakened to her shaking my shoulder.
“Look! See, I told you!”
There, just as she indicated, was the clear silhouette of a small frog that had jumped on to the outside of our tent.
I acknowledged it, and we both went back to sleep for a little while.
When we’d all awakened, she leaned across my back and said, “You sure did make me feel better last night.”
Mission accomplished.
We all have moments when we do something we don’t really want to do because it will help someone else. As a leader, I find that the more often I subjugate my own interests for those of others, the better I lead.
Well reflected!