Swim Lessons: A Metaphor For Life?

It’s Amazing What We Can Learn From A Four-Year-Old

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For the last few weeks, I’ve had the privilege of taking my grandson to swim lessons. He’s gone for 30 minutes a day, four days a week, for five weeks. He’s made steady progress, and I couldn’t be more proud of his hard work and determination.

As I’ve watched him progress daily, I’ve spent some time reflecting on the life lessons he’s been learning in the pool. It has occurred to me that these lessons aren’t learned once and then become a permanent part of who we are. These lessons need to be revisited over and over throughout our lives.

Here are five lessons I’ve seen him learning over the last few weeks. They seem as relevant to me at 54 years old as they are to him.

1. Overcoming fear. He’s never been afraid of the water, but there have been things in the pool he’s been afraid to do. He was afraid of putting his face in the water — not anymore. He was afraid to jump in unless someone was catching him — not anymore. It seems a vital key to his success has been baby steps. In fact, it would be hard to see any progress from one day to the next, but if you look at a Monday and compare it to Thursday, or if you look at Monday from one week and compare it to Monday two weeks later you can really see it.