My son turned one a few days ago.

As if on cue, the kid decided it was time to work on standing up on his own, so over the break, while we were sitting in a mall--middle Americans that we are--waiting for something to open, Dylan started working on his standing skill.

I had a still camera--and hopefully will post a pic or two here--but no video, and what was most amazing about the process was watching him realize that he was on to something BIG.  He would hoist himself up to standing (doing a kind of modified deadlift and validating Gray Cook's theory that the deadlift--not the squat--is really the most natural way of getting up from the ground), and then totter there for a moment, eyes shining, beaming, sometimes applauding himself as he suddenly realized...his hands were free, and he could suddenly see WAY further than usual.

It was a bit of compressed evolution at work.  He was evolving from four-footed to bipedal right before our eyes. 

Probably the most amazing thing--and of course I'm fully aware that I'm a simpering father and biased about my own son's accomplishments--was that he repeated his efforts, over and over and over again.  And though he got himself upright most of the time, he always fell over after a few seconds.  Always.

So--and this is where this stops being a simpering Dad story and more of a fitness tale--all his efforts were finally...hate to say it...futile.  He failed.  They finished with a crash to the floor.

But the notable part--the part that houses the lesson for me, and maybe for you too--was that there was no evidence of frustration in him.  He didn't care that he fell over every time--it was just part of the game.  He was just enjoying the hell out of his singular accomplishment.  It was all a marvelous game to him. 

Inevitably, my wife and I started trying to coax him into walking, but it was my six-year-old who called us off:  just let him stand, she said.  Don't try to make him do more than that right now.

When the kid's right, she's right.  Dylan was having a great time standing and falling, standing and falling.  As proud as we were of him. my wife and I just wanted him to hurry up and walk. 

Okay so here's the life lesson, compressed:

1) Revel in your accomplishments.

2) Enjoy the process of learning.

3) Understand that imperfection is part of the package.

4) Don't judge yourself. 

I heard some neurologist once say that in the first year of life you learn more than you'll learn for the whole rest of your life combined.  Virtually anything we can do in life is actually less complex than the process of learning to walk.  We all did that, so why can't we learn a foreign language, take up a new sport, learn to ballroom dance, get an advanced degree?

Watching a kid learn to walk does tend to make one think anything is possible.