Think Like a Wheel

The process of original thinking moves like a wheel. It definitely goes around and around, back-and-forth.

But that spinning thought needs to find traction against something in order to make forward progress.

What IS that something? And why is it that sometimes we can see our progress and sometimes we just can't?

Its a matter of perspective. For example, from the perspective of the hood ornament, the car moves ever forward (most of the time), taking the passengers and cargo onward. But from the perspective of the valve stem on the tire, things just go around and around endlessly... maybe even pointlessly.

One has to look at progress from the right perspective. If the wheels weren't spinning so redundantly, the car wouldn't move at all. But tell that to the valve stem.

Family life moves the same way. At some point, the meals and the laundry, and the house cleaning are all like the wheels. Endless if you keep your perspective inside the task. But they're necessary rotations to keep the entire family machine moving forward.

Take my son, R, for example. Today the school counselor wrote an email outlining how much progress they've seen in R over the last year and a half. Naturally, this email came just after we'd stayed up until 1am on a school night helping R get a writing assignment started, two days before the deadline - a project he'd had one month's notice on. I wasn't necessarily feeling like he'd made much progress, but obviously I'm on the wheel here, not on the hood ornament. I need to hear the feedback from the hood ornament to know we're making progress.

This says a lot about where my lovely wife is. So much of what she does is the spinning of the wheels. If she can't see the progress, then she feels ineffective. And yet, she's the wheel. If the wheel doesn't spin, nothing happens.

How can I possibly thank her enough for what she does? Short answer: I can't.