My Son’s Slide

“If you’re having a hard time recognizing your gifts, look to someone else you know who’s been resourceful. You may be surprised by how your own strengths rise to the surface by watching someone else.” — Chris Gardner

You may not recognize the name Chris Gardner, but you may recognize Will Smith, the actor who played him in the film The Pursuit of Happyness.

But what in the world does that have to do with my son’s slide?

Some time last year — or maybe the year before — we found a slide sitting on the side of the road. It was part of a much larger playset, so it just laid there on the round, waiting for someone to pick it up.

So I grabbed it, thinking that it could be used to build a slide at some point. I never did build a thing.

But my son did.

He took the slide and placed it on the side of the stairs leading from our upper deck to our lower deck, giving him an alternate (and more exciting) way to get from the top deck to the bottom one.

We couldn’t go to a park when he built it and many parks are still closed here. But thanks to a slide that we picked up off the side of the road and some resourcefulness, we now have a slide in our backyard.

I saw what my son made so that he could do what he wanted to do thanks to his resourcefulness and I hope to follow his example with the things I want to do.

I encourage you to tap into your resourcefulness — or look to that of others — so that you can do the same.

Want to get more resourceful? Here’s a page listing all of the tools I use as resources.