If a 9 Year & 4 Year Old Can Climb 69 Floors, What’s Really Stopping You?
Motivation & Inspiration does not come knocking at your door, you have to create it from within yourself. So, just get on with it.
It may sound unthinkable that kids can climb so many floors, and possibly even weird that they would actually attempt it. But haven’t we all seen kids who are always looking to climb stairs wherever they go? They practically take over the stairs.! Ask any parent how many times they have had to chase their kids up and down the stairs, and you will get a good roll of their eyes.
I mean they do it at all kinds of places — malls, train stations, airports, apartment complexes, road-side crossing bridges, etc. If kids see any stairs, they just want to climb. And there is absolutely no point in trying to stop them. Just peep inside a school premise and you will see how excited kids get just going up and down the stairs endlessly.
It seems they have this inherent desire to climb stairs — probably a way to prove to themselves that they can climb higher, or just to be able to look down from a higher vantage point, or to derive this great feeling of climbing up something just like adults feel while climbing mountains. Don’t we also experience a different kind of rush through our bodies when we scale heights?
Maybe it’s the same with kids as well. But 69 floors? I was about to find out in the most bizarre way.
We stay in an apartment complex that has 19 floors (17 floors + 2 levels of parking), and we stay on the 15th floor. We have 2 kids — a 9-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son.
One evening after the kids had finished playing in the park within our apartment complex, they both came to up me and said they wanted to climb up to our apartment on the 15th floor (including the parking levels, it would make a total of 17 floors).
I was quite taken aback when I heard that. Surely, I have seen them climb up and down on all kinds of stairs wherever we travel. And I have followed suit behind them just to make sure they are safe. But, this was different. 17 Floors is a big climb even for an adult if someone has never done it before.
To make sure they were were not on any sugar rush, I checked with both of them again whether they were positive about this (partly because I for one didn’t want to climb the 17 floors and maybe I was the one who needed the sugar rush).
Let’s Just Climb On
They looked at me, looked at each other, and without answering my question started to climb as if I was talking to the walls. Seeing them go up, I followed them with this nasty feeling in my stomach about climbing so many floors. I was very sure that the kids would stop at around 3rd or the 4th level and ask to go home by elevator.
But to my surprise, my son climbed non-stop up to the 6th floor and my daughter climbed up to the 8th floor. Don’t ask about me.! I was barely holding up and was already out of breath. I looked at the kids, and both of them had this big smile on their faces. A smile that expressed their achievement of this mini-milestone. I asked them to take a break by counting until 20, to help them catch up on their breath and more so mine.
Then we started again. This time, they both climbed non-stop up to the 16th floor. The train did not stop for its scheduled stop on the 15th floor, they just zoomed past without even bothering to look at the floor level. They wanted to push ahead and climb all the 19 floors.
I followed as a dutiful but totally exhausted father. 3 more levels to go I said to myself and then it will be all over (especially for me). We took a break at the 16th level and the kids counted until 20. I counted as well. We started climbing again and reached the 19th floor, drenched in sweat but totally excited about the achievement.
We did our high-fives, jumped around a little bit, and let out a few loud hoots. We looked down the stairwell and saw how much we had climbed. Sorry, let me correct this. How much they had climbed. It was their climb, their decision, their perseverance, their achievement.
I was just another passenger on their train who initially was not even sure whether the train will ever reach its destination. But it did. I bit my tongue, never to doubt my children again.
Here We Go Again
During this first attempt, we didn’t clock our climb. Wait, are you thinking that there were many more climbs to come? Well, yeah — these are kids who we are talking about. If they enjoy doing something once, it's 100% guaranteed they will want to do it again. And that too, not next week, but the very next day itself.
You see adults don’t think like that. If they do it once, they are just happy that they didn’t sprain themselves during the climb and are done with it. Most of them would not want to do it again. (though some would). I however fall into the former category.
So here we are again the next day all set to climb. This time they set the target to 19 floors. I guess the way kids think is — yesterday we set a target of 15 floors, but we managed to do 19 floors. So, let's raise the target today and go for more. It was more or less the same drill, stopping after climbing a few floors, counting until 20, and then climbing again. I so badly wanted to count until 40.
The kids reached the 19th floor effortlessly. I continued to struggle.
And we repeated this multiple times for the next few days as well. It kinda became a routine. So one day, I decided to clock the climb, more from a curiosity point of view to see how much time does it really take to climb 19 floors. Because when you are climbing, it feels like a lot of time. I guess when you are exhausted and out of breath, it feels as if time is not your best buddy, it just moves excruciatingly slow. But when we are enjoying ourselves, time passes really fast.
Climbing stairs by no means was enjoyable for me to say the least. Anyway, I decided to clock it but didn’t tell my kids. I don’t think they work by the clock or are bothered by such trivial curiosities.
I initiated my stop-watch on my mobile and we started climbing. We reached the 19th floor. The stop-watch showed 4 mins, 52 secs. I was surprised and somewhat ecstatic as well looking at the numbers. So, I showed it to my kids as well expecting them to be thrilled just like me. No reaction. They were like OK, so what? Not an iota of excitement from both looking at the stop-watch.
They were just happy to reach the 19th floor.
It's amazing how adults get so excited by such things and kids don’t. I guess they operate at a different level than ours. We grossly underestimate them. To me, it seems like they are more focused on what they want to achieve. We, adults, are distracted souls. We are constantly thinking about all other things and cluttering our mind with outside noise elements
Taking This To The Next Level
After doing these climbs over a few weeks, one evening I was talking to my neighbor while my kids were playing around in the park. I was sharing with him how our kids have been climbing 19 floors. He shared that, he also usually climbs 70 floors every day as part of his fitness routine. I thought that was really cool and we spoke a little bit more about that. I did not realize at that moment, that my son was listening to our conversations.
We as parents really don’t know what's happening around us when we are talking to other parents. We are just so happy that we get to talk to someone else at all at a park..!
The next morning my son wakes up, comes up to me with sleepy eyes and the first thing he tells me is, “Dad — I think we should climb 69 floors today”. My first reaction was — I don’t think he is awake yet. And the second reaction was — Who WE? There is no WE here..! (In my mind I was actually going — You are freaking nuts.!). Then on noticing that he was wide awake, (I guess he captured the reaction on my face which opened up his sleepy eyes), I bent down and got down to his level, looked him in the eye man-to-man, and asked him — Are you out of your mind? Lol — no that wasn’t what I asked him. My initial thought was to say NO.
But I took a pause, thought about it, and said — OK, let's do it. There is Power in saying Yes
I proceeded to ask him,” why 69 floors, what’s so special about 69"? To that, he said, “Your friend did 70 floors, I want to do 69 floors”. So I corrected him (we parents want to correct our children all the time) by reminding him that 69 is less than 70. And if he wants, he can either match my friend or do more than him, ie either 70 or 71 floors. I don’t think he was listening to me again (I need to learn to do that).
He looked at me with a big smile on his face and said “I like 69”. I rested my case.
If there is one important thing that you learn as a parent is never to argue with a 4-year-old. You will lose. Better to work on the plan and make it happen. Trust me it will add more years to your life.
Kids I guess, are not bothered by fancy numbers. If they like the ring of something, that’s good enough for them. We, on the other hand, are always figuring out fancy numbers in our heads and trying to compete with other people.
Am dead sure, if any adult wanted to do this, she/he most definitely would have chosen to hit either 70 floors or more than that. But never would have chosen 69.
Personal Glory
So, here we go again. This time we spend the initial few minutes doing some stretching exercises, each of us eats a banana and drink a decent quantity of water. We start the climb. Same routine. We finish the first climb — 19 floors. We take the elevator down. We take a break for 5 mins. Start climbing again. Finish the 2nd climb. Total 38 floors. Take the elevator down, take a break.
Climb again. Finish the 3rd climb. Total 57 floors. We now have to do only 12 more floors. We take the elevators down. Take a break for 10 mins this time, get some more fresh air, cool off a little bit. We start to climb again with a clear target of 12 floors. We reach the 12th floor. Total 69 floors. Done.
My kids are fully drenched in sweat, so am I. We jump up and down, do our high-fives and you can see they were truly elated. Pure raw unadulterated joy.
After we are done jumping and celebrating, I ask my kids — “We have 3 more floors to our apartment on the 15th floor, do they want to go for it?” Their eyes light up, they had obviously not thought that climbing 69 floors would actually bring them to a shoot out for our apartment on the 15th floor. The mere thought that they were so close to our apartment, just instilled a fresh bout of energy in both of them.
Without answering (this keeps repeating), they took off. This time not pacing their steps, but actually running up. For a few seconds, I stood there watching. How can these kids be left with any energy after climbing 69 floors? and are actually running up the stairs..!
I followed them up. I was in no state to run or walk. I don’t remember, but I guess I must’ve crawled the 3 floors.
As soon as they reached the 15th floor, they rushed through the door and started celebrating. This was their BIG celebration. They were more excited about the fact that they climbed back home after completing 69 floors on the 12th level. At the end of all, coming home was far more exciting for them than climbing 72 floors.
For them, 69 or 72 floors, whatever that number was — had no relevance actually. They were in it for the action. They were in it for the pure joy. They were in for their personal glory.
Why Adults Mess This Up So Badly?
How many of us can actually think like that? Our minds are constantly thinking about the next thing that we will do after the task is completed. And we get excited with numbers. Numbers, around which we revolve all day long, creating stress and anxiety.
And on top of that, we fill up our minds with so many trivial things that we actually drown in the chaos soup and we miss the biggest payout — which is experiencing “Joy”.
We, adults, have this nasty habit of measuring and clocking everything — from how many steps we take in an hour, a day, a week, a month; the number of reps that we take for every fitness routine, the amount of time we run or walk, etc, etc. We like to measure everything. It's like we have become so wired and obsessed about these measurements that we actually stop having fun.
Needless to say, am also guilty of some of these things myself. But am on my journey of learning some of these valuable traits from my kids
You see we want to measure all these things, not for ourselves (maybe sometimes), but more often than not to share it with the rest of the world on fitness platforms and social media networks. I can understand all this if you are training for a marathon or a high-level sports event that you are participating in and want to compare your scores with other people.
But you take 10,000 steps in 1 week ( I don’t even know whether that’s less or more, I have no clue) and you want to share it with the entire Universe. Really, what’s the point of all that?
We remain so distracted that, our minds are constantly barraged with chaotic thoughts starting from — how do I look in my fitness wear, does the tee match my shorts/pants, do my shoes match with my overall attire, is my fitness watch charged, is my mobile charged, are my Bluetooth headphones charged (I can’t be seen wearing those wired headphones, it is so out of trend now), or
I should not forget to click at least 20 selfies, I have to share these pictures with all my friends on FB, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, constantly compiling a list of all the friends with whom we want to share our pictures after the climb is done, am I carrying a fancy water bottle or not (what will people think if they see me carrying an old bottle which does not have a Nike or Adidas logo on it), etc, etc. I think you get the point. You see the list is endless. P.S — I have nothing against Nike or Adidas.
Kids don’t do any of this. They just get on with it. Their happiness and excitement come from doing it, not showing it.
You Surely Can
Our 2 kids are not any special than other kids, they are not rock stars, they are not fitness freaks (yet). They are normal kids who love what they do, who inherently know how to keep distractions at bay and soak in the pleasure of “climbing”, rather than “thinking while climbing”
When they started climbing the floors, they didn’t wear any special climbing shoes, or expensive fitness attire, or carry fancy water bottles, or music pods to motivate them to climb the 69 floors. In fact, it did not even occur to them that all these are even needed. Now, how cool is that..!
I am not diluting the importance of some of these things that provide comfort to some people. They surely serve a certain purpose when you climb floors or indulge in any of your fitness routines
But you should not allow these things to become the primary agents when you are setting out to tackle your personal goals and ambitions, or whatever you want to challenge yourself with. More often than not, all these things just add to the clutter.
After all, what you do is fundamentally more important than loading yourself with trivial thoughts. By keeping it simple, your mind automatically gets into a focus zone.
Our kids climbed the 69 (72) floors because they wanted to experience a real thrill, to prove to themselves that they can do it, something to challenge themselves with, something that lighted a spark in their eyes.
And if they can do it, You surely can. I for one have no doubts about that.
In my publication Any Given Sunday, I mostly write stories about parenting, being a dad, motivation, fitness, and some off-beat controversial topics.
I am also very passionate about F1, and run a publication — Formula One Forever where writers from across the globe contribute to this publication
Some more thought-provoking stories from Any Given Sunday —
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⭐ Your Kids Need To Sleep For Atleast 8 Hours. Otherwise, The Consequences Are Quite Severe
⭐ Teachers, Stop Asking Children To Click Pictures. Instead, Do This One Thing
⭐ If a 9 Year & 4 Year Old Can Climb 69 Floors, What’s Really Stopping You?
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⭐ Be Different. Become Different
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⭐ The Information Tsunami Is Sucking You In. And You Don’t Even Know It. (Part 2)
⭐ Women Should Stop Trying To Walk Shoulder To Shoulder With Men (Part 1)
⭐ Women Should Stop Trying To Walk Shoulder To Shoulder With Men (Part 2)
⭐ Women Should Stop Trying To Walk Shoulder To Shoulder With Men (Part 3)
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