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My Journey to the Left


I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to write this blog and forgot what I was going to write. I can count at least three times that the idea came into my mind and ten minutes later I couldn't even remember the idea.

Maybe it had to do with me being consumed by the victory of the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA finals. What a show! I have never seen such a selfless team demolish an adversary with such ease. It was an amazing show. Sorry Heat fans; maybe next time.

Now back to my story. The idea came to me (numerous times) while I was feeding my daughter. It seems like she doesn't need my help anymore. It felt like she was telling me  “give me this stupid spoon so I can feed myself”. Of course she did not say these exact words, but that is how I felt.

Being a proud father with a potential legacy of a daughter who enjoys food as much as her dad, I couldn't resist giving her the spoon.

While she fed herself, I noticed that she used her left hand. I thought I was mistaken. I tried to take the spoon and put it in her right hand but she just shouted “mine!!”, and put it back in her left hand. Is she left handed or right handed? I really don’t know (this will come in handy many years from now when she starts playing basketball).

All I knew was that only a few minutes later, her dish was empty.

The left hand story got me thinking. I remembered how, a long time ago when we were kids back home in Burundi (a very long time ago according to my wife lol), parents and teachers used to beat up left handed kids while telling them that they were not normal. We had to all use right hands, because “everybody” was doing it. Kids had no choice other than to conform.

Isn't that funny? Those parents and teachers didn't know that it was a brain pattern that made the kids left handed or right handed, and that there was nothing abnormal about it. But for some reason parents felt that they had to be like everybody, or else...

Don’t you think that this is how our society works today? We all have to conform to the norm, otherwise there is something wrong with us. This leads me to two quotes that made my day today.

Here they are:

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”.
Mohandas K. Gandhi
“Take the course opposite to custom and you will almost always do well.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I couldn't agree more with these two quotes. What about you: do you agree or do you disagree?
Moral of the story? Do you want to be unique? Just eat your food with your left hand and you will meet Gandhi.
Always a pleasure
Patrick
The Journeyman

    

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