Once there was a boy who had just learned to ride his bicycle. He had never had training wheels, but the previous Saturday his father had spent a good portion of the morning trotting behind the bike and holding the seat, letting go of it for a few seconds from time to time. After much practice, and his father letting go of it for longer and longer times, the boy finally was able to ride down to the corner and back by himself.
It was the next Saturday, and he was out there right after breakfast, feeling very pleased with himself. He had to ride down the sidewalk, and to his left was a high curb, and to his right were any number of scratchy junipers. It was not really a good place to fall, and so this motivated him to try to do well.
And he did. He was a coordinated boy, and when he fell he was never hurt too badly. But he did fall from time to time, and as the morning progressed it got to the point where he was not really falling at all.
At lunch, over a sandwich and a bowl of hot soup, he was talking to his father about how it was going. “How’s it going?” his dad said.
“Great,” replied the boy. “I think I have it figured out.”
“How’s that?” said his father.
“Well, every time I thought I was going to fall into the street, I fell into the junipers. And every time I thought I was going to fall into the junipers, I fell into the street. And so I figured it out. I just quit trying to not fall where I felt like I was falling.”
His father stared at him for a moment.
“Could you say that again?”
“I quit worrying about falling where I thought I was going to fall. And so then I didn’t.”
“You know, there are some people down at my office who need to hear this. What is your lecture fee?”
His mother spoke to her husband with that slight warning in her voice that good wives and mothers have. “Now, Tom,” she said.
But his son was just looking at him, somewhat baffled. So his father simply said, “You said a mouthful. Just remember that life is full of junipers and streets, and people who didn’t learn what you just did.”
“Okay, dad,” the son said. His dad was always saying stuff like that.