On inconveniences and adventures

~An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.

 An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.~  

~G.K. Chesterton~

I was supposed to be learning about highly important, scientific type things, instead I took home something far more profound, or at least sort of interesting.  It was one of those conferences where you don't dare address anyone as 'doctor' or else you'll have fifty people suddenly looking expectantly in your direction; where you cram 87 hours of learning into three days and wonder why your brain hurts so much you don't even bemoan the fact that even though you are in Florida or Guam, you don't have time to enjoy the tourist attractions because you have to go home tomorrow and spent the entire trip in a dark, freezing room staring at a screen whereon a can of alphabet soup exploded.  Most of my continuing education requirements must be of a scientific or medical nature, but they let you slip in a few 'general' hours now and again, I think merely to spare our sanity.  This particular lecture happened to deal with the nature of happiness and it was rather fascinating.  What struck me were the things on the list that did or did not correlate with happiness, most especially children.  Apparently, in general, married people are happier but people with kids aren't.  That struck me as rather odd.  But then there is that scary blog written by despairing mothers everywhere, maybe I'm a statistical anomaly or maybe we moderns just have this whole kid thing backwards, much like G.K's quote above.

I'm not saying kids are easy, but life is sure more 'full' once they come into your life; they somehow round out or complete your family in a way that can't be put into words.  Maybe it is because suddenly, there is someone in the world who is (or should be) more important than you, and it is in doing things that are meaningful that we find happiness, or so the speaker assured us.  Maybe our problem is, similar to our warped expectations of marriage, that we wrongly expect kids to somehow automatically fulfill or complete us: they are a possession or a status symbol, no different than a pet or a car, and we resent them when they interfere with our idea of a 'good life.'  They will spill spaghetti on your plush, white carpet.  They will 'urp' all over your favorite blouse.  And you can't sell them or take them to the humane society when they become inconvenient.  But as G.K. so magnificently points out: inconveniences are merely overlooked adventures.  Are they annoying, loud, disrespectful, and stubborn, of course!  But then, so are you, and every other human on the planet. We also forget that they are fun, hilarious, sweet, and adventurous, and with a little luck, some of that might just rub off on their parents.

As I said goodbye to my son this morning, he said something that both thrilled and broke my heart, it was simply, 'come back.'  To most people that might not be a big deal, but growing up in a home where I was neither loved nor wanted, it was the most wonderful thing in the world.  I was needed, I was wanted, I was loved, I had a home at last!  I think G.K. was right, and the world would be a whole lot happier if we took his advice.  Who knows, kids might just be the biggest adventure of all!