It hit me again recently. We create our own prisons. We feel trapped when we believe things have to go a certain way, only to find that way blocked.
Last Saturday, I found myself standing in a drizzle with 145 other parents, sipping coffee and comparing notes on the various elementary schools in the district. At 9am, the doors of the multi-purpose room opened, and we filed in single file to hand in our applications for Kindergarten, in return for our lottery ticket. This school is the only magnet school in the district; a California distinguished elementary school, with a charming campus to boot.
Each of these 146 parents had visited this magnet school on a tour and decided it was worth applying to, even though the odds weren´t great we´d get in. I had very mixed feelings. Part of me disliked the notion that so much attention was going to a single school in the district, instead of spreading it around to all of the neighborhood schools. The other part of me wanted to make sure I wasn´t passing up on an important opportunity for the kids to be in an environment that would challenge them. I decided to let fate have its say.
We took our little tickets (I received numbers 94 and 95 - one for each of my twins) and found a space to sit in the crowded auditorium. On the board in the front of the room, we saw 24 blank lines drawn in chalk - 24 spots for 146 kindergarten entrants. Not the best odds.
The was a short speech by the school principal, followed by her reaching into a basket to draw the lucky number which would represent the first of the 24 open slots. I heard the drum roll in my head and then "105!" was announced. There was a gleeful shout from someone in the middle of the room, followed by lots of murmuring as they proceeded to fill in the winners' numbers on the blank spaces drawn on the board. Ticket holders 105 through 129 were in! The waiting list started at 130, which meant that my place on the line would be close to dead last. Behind me, a loud sigh, followed by "Damn!". I turned around and saw the red face of a deeply disappointed man who looked like he had lost his only chance for his child to succeed. Perhaps he was only 1 number off, or maybe he lived right next door and dreaded the thought of having to drive his child to a different school. In any case, he was pretty devastated.
As I glanced around the room, I saw other parents, some with eyes filled with tears, deeply disappointed that they were not the chosen ones.
Why this story and what´s the point? The point is that there is almost always more than one right answer. Dewitt Jones, award-winning National Geographic photographer and motivational speaker, helped cement this for me during his amazing and inspiring presentation at our annual conference in Phoenix in 2005. He began the series with an amazing scene, and then took the same scene from a very different perspective - another amazing photograph, and then again from another angle - each time the audience breathed a loud ´ah´, believing they must have seen the best one, only to see an equally or more remarkable perspective of the same scene on the next slide. He talked of his great lesson as a photographer that there is no one right answer. When he comes upon a scene full of potential, he looks for many right answers.
Casey and Mackenzie will go to our neighborhood elementary school when they start kindergarten in the fall. I'm convinced that their success in life will not be impacted because they didn´t win the lottery and won't attend the district's one coveted elementary school. There are many paths to follow, and many great schools and teachers, each offering interesting and instructive lessons along the way.
Next time I´m feeling stuck; I need to remember to ask myself... what´s another right answer?
