Years ago, the late Steve Jobs gave a commencement speech “You Have to Find What You Love,” which without a doubt is one of the most inspirational speeches you will ever hear. I thought of his inspiring speech last weekend, when I surprised my daughter with the news that I had enrolled her in swimming class.
I knew she would be excited but OMG (as the kids say), her excitement was uncontainable. She started jumping up and down, saying “thank you, thank you” and smiling like it was Christmas morning.
I know my daughter loved swimming but who knew she loved it that much. My daughter has been in the water since she was three months old and we have been going to swim class since then, can you imagine, every Saturday for almost 8 years. I mean we started with kids from pre-school who have since dropped out. In fact, there is not one kid we know anymore who still takes swimming. This weekly ritual came to a halt last October when I enrolled her in a Saturday enrichment class which sadly took up her entire morning thus missing swim class. To say she was not happy about missing swim class is an understatement.
I realized while watching my daughter literally smiling from ear to ear every time she jumped into the water what exactly being passionate about something truly looks like. Her passion makes me determined to figure out how to get her as much swim time in over the summer. And when my daughter talks about wanting to be on the swim team, I guess I will have to suck it up and figure out how to make it happen even if it means getting up at 5am for swim practice.
What do you do to encourage your child’s passion?
It’s such a great feeling when our kids are so happy from following their passion. I’m enrolling my DD in dance classes because she loves to dance!
Yep..plan on lots of hours with swim practice…but she will have nicely toned arms:)
Great message in this post!