Is This The Last Time?

Happy Saturday Friends,

There will be a last time. For everything in your life, there will be a last time.

The last time you lost a tooth.
The last time you ride a roller coaster.
The last time you read to your daughter before she goes to sleep.
The last time you get to drop off or pick up the kids from school.

For me, and likely for the parents in the audience, the last times you’ll be thinking about now are those with your kids.

Let me paint a little picture for you.
It’s been one of those weeks. It’s finally Friday early evening, and I’ve just flopped on the couch. Maybe I'll take out my book, turn on some chilled tunes or get ready to watch some footy.
My little darling child, still overflowing with energy even though it’s Friday, comes into the living room and asks you to play a game with me.

Me: “Daddy is really tired today, sweety. Why don’t you go ask your sister to play with you? Or do some drawing on your own, we can play later.”

You get me, right? It’s been a long week. I’m exhausted. And I’ve already played a few sessions of building the same memory game this week. But then I asked myself, what if this was the last time I ever got to play a memory game with my daughter?
That changes everything.

Kids aren’t easy, we all know that. I often say they’re the hardest job I’ve ever had and will ever have. But we get such a short time of our lives with our kids, and the “lasts” stack up so quickly.

The worst part about these last times is we get no warning. These moments slip by quietly, without fanfare. They almost always go unnoticed until sometimes years later. Scroll back through your phone’s photo album to this time last year, I’m confident you’ll see a couple of photos with your kids where that was the last time you did that thing.

My 8-year-old used to LOVE swings. We’d go to the park, and she could spend the entire hour with me pushing her on one swing. Last weekend, we walked down to a park near us, and my 5-year-old jumped on the swing immediately and asked for a push. A few moments later, my oldest daughter got on the one next to us. She turned to me and also asked for a few “giant pushes.”

At that moment, I realised it was about a year or more since she’d asked me to push her on the swing.
So, I savoured every single push.

Now, I don’t want to make this week’s post a sad one so I’m going to share some of the learnings and skills I’ve been developing since becoming more aware of “lasts”.

A Patience Hack

I’ve spent the past 2-3 years trying to understand how to be a better parent. I’ve read books, seen psychologists, and listened to podcasts. And, of course, I’ve tried a ton of their suggestions. I’ve A/B tested the shit out of parenting advice.
Patience is the key trait needed to be a good parent. If you don’t have any other traits but are patient with your kids, you will already survive WAY better than most parents.

Unfortunately for me patience is not one of my strengths. Well, it hasn’t been but I’ve worked hard on it. It’s much easier to say I’ll try to be patient than it is to be patient in reality.
So, can we potentially leverage some frameworks that force us to be patient without having to close our eyes and count to ten… thousand?
Telling yourself, this could be the last time you [insert anything here] will do that immediately.

It’s been a complete hack to force patience on myself in almost any situation. Not only that, but it forces me to be grateful for these little moments I don't always appreciate.

Gratitude Hack

I know, I know, gratitude journalling is very woo-woo. I’ve tried it, not consistently for long enough periods, but I have. I thought it was too woo-woo and cringe, so I stopped.

But I was listening to a podcast earlier this week and heard a psychologist give a different reason for expressing gratitude. He said he reframes the mind towards a more positive outlook on life. Forcing yourself to think of something you’re grateful for will force positive thoughts.

Thinking about something you enjoy being the last time you enjoy it is one way to force yourself into a grateful mindset. You’ll suddenly find appreciation for the small things you now take for granted. Like when you hold your little girls hand to cross the street and she holds on for an extra few blocks.

Savour The Moment

So now I’m off the couch, on the floor and trying to pretend I didn’t see her lift up 4 cards to find the ones that match. Something else I have noticed is that I’m a little more aware and present in this moment. Before I wouldn’t concentrate the entire time, or I’d do something else at the same time.

But, with this new mindset of it possibly being my last, I am all in. I want to savour every moment of watching in astonishment at how a child knows how to cheat already at 5-years-old.

​Now that I’ve got you thinking about how many lasts you weren’t paying attention to, let me relieve some of the anxiety.

Every last is closely followed by a new first. As one set of events comes to an end, they make room for new experiences to step in.
It’s all part of life, this ebb and flow, dawn and sunset. I’m here to make you a more aware of it then you have been and to shift your mindset a little.

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."

- Robert Brault

​
Peace, love and growth.
Jarren

Peace, love and growth.
Jarren