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| Love you, L. Let's build this bus, together. |
My oldest grandson L and I both love LEGO. Sometimes I am still his LEGOfer, constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing anew. I'm cool with this assistant-type role. As his Grandpops, I am happy to be his apprentice or his mentor, as needed.
And that got me thunk: is it more satisfying to build LEGO alone or with a trusted someone? The answer is of course both. It depends on your goals, what you're seeking from the experience, but there's something else at play too....
Maybe you're LEGOing freestyle, enjoying collaborating with a partner, creating something unplanned, unexpected, going with the flow. Or maybe you aim to prove something to yourself and yourself only, hoping to overcome a challenge, show that you have what it takes to build something complicated, to overcome the onerous.
Whatever the intent, I think far too men think they have to construct LEGO alone.
November is men's mental health month. Turns out the skills required in constructing LEGO are essentially the same ones needed to be mentally fit: managing your thoughts, regulating your emotions, problem-solving, controlling what you actually can, leveraging your strengths, and (please) LEANING ON YOUR PEOPLE.
Here's the thing: let's say you're building a bus. This is certainly a LEGO task one would expect to do on his own. But then consider that bus a metaphor, a pretty good one for life itself. Sometimes therapists use this comparison to illustrate how to manage this trip we call life. In this metaphor, you are the bus driver: you choose the direction and you know what's driving you. Then there are the passengers: these represent your inner thoughts, your emotions, your doubts, your fears, your mistakes, your painful memories. And finally, the noise: some "passengers" may be quiet or even encouraging, but others tell you you're stupid or a failure or weak and worse.
Dear friends, passengers lie. They make it difficult to construct the route, steer, maintain and repair the bus, plus it's hard to kick them off the bus, alone. A trusted someone (personal or profession) can help you or someone you care about: who doesn't need that sometimes?
