Sophia's Post Office
A beginner's mind has something to teach us. We must remain attuned to its way of seeing and being.
My daughter Sophia is three. So, of course, she likes to play. But she’s also a toddler. And toddlers say goofy things.
One day, she sat at her little plastic table in one of her little plastic chairs.
“Dad! Come to Sophia’s Post Office!” she said.
How sweet, I thought, as dads will, and sat down in the other plastic chair.
“What can I get for you?” she asked.
“Well, what do you have?” I replied.
“We have ice cream and breakfast and pictures!”
Disclosure: The ice cream is Playdough, the breakfast and plates are toys, and the pictures are hand-painted watercolors by Sophia herself—after Pollock and Rothko.
Before I could scoff and interrogate the idea that any Post Office would have ice cream, breakfast, or pictures, I realized she would learn that dreary fact someday.
On this particular day, her imagination would run wild.
Sophia and I would live in a world where entrepreneurial dreamers like her run post offices that people might want to visit—and run them profitably.
Never stop dreaming, baby girl.
Total U.S. Postal Service’s Unfunded Liabilities and Debt, Fiscal Years 2007-2022
Thank you for sharing. I think that you must be a wonderful father. Hearing you talk brings back memories of my own life.
I did a guest activity with my son's 5th grade class where I talked with them about rights. I had learned that they were studying the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, half of which are not rights at all. I wanted to do a little damage control for their young minds, so I asked the teachers if I could give a talk, and surprisingly they said yes.
Anyway, apropos of your point that "A beginner's mind has something to teach us"…I was BLOWN AWAY by the sophisticated innate understanding of rights that all children possess. It was a life-changing 90 minutes!