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Sunday, August 18, 2013

Negotiation

Not sure why I never hit publish on this 2 years ago but hey, today's as good a day as any!!!

Date unkown.

Mr3: 'Raaah look out everybody, the lava will burn you up, quick run and hide the lava is coming!'
Miss 6 (in full princess regalia, walking sedately carrying a bouquet of parsley) 'W do you want to play with me?'
'sure, I'm a dinosaur and the volcano just exploded, we have to hide!'
'but I'm a princess and I'm getting married today'
'oh.. okay, then I can rescue you, climb up on this bridge'
'no, it's not a bridge it's a boat!
'oh. no, the boat's starting to burn!'
'it's on fire, we'll have to jump out!'
'quick, here's the fire extinguisher'

Today a princess having a wedding and a fireman dinosaur rescuing people from a lava spewing volcano found common ground. Amazing. Adults couldn't do it. I am thinking the power to compromise was aided by their imagination. Why couldn't a volcano interrupt your wedding?

Imagination is something I prize. I believe if they hang on to that quality they will be much better able as adults to 'walk a mile in someone elses shoes', to concede that perhaps that rude shop assistant is having a bad day, that theirs might be the 30th difficult call that call centre worker has taken today, to imagine that although things may seem bleak right now good things may well be right around the corner, that there is a way to solve this problem if they try hard enough, they will never be bored.