LEGO LESSONS

Por Christine Jayakaran

All three of our kids have a new found addiction in Lego and it's interesting to watch how differently each of them work with it. Our oldest builds his toy and then will break it down to reinvent and rebuild it. Our daughter will weep at how complex it is and then after we build it with her she will keep it stored like a relic in her wardrobe. Our youngest will build his toy and refuse to take it apart. He will play with the intact toy for as long as he can and the minute one part breaks off he will ditch it like a hot potato.

Me on the other hand, I'm not a Lego kinda gal I realised. I lack the basic ingredient that every Lego user needs - PATIENCE. Our daughter's newest Lego had the finished product's picture on the cover so when she put me on the spot by asking her to help her build it I jumped right in thinking I could just build it based on the picture I could see. That was the biggest joke! I began on a strong note but about ten minutes in I noticed that I was going nowhere because I had used all the prominent big pieces if the puzzle but there were a host of tiny pieces that I had no clue what to do with. My son comes in and then introduces me then to a vital part of the puzzle - the instruction booklet. So I'm not someone who reads instruction manuals- I just figure stuff out on the go (I'm wild like that). So we began on page 1 of the manual and after one hour we had a completed product identical to the picture on the box. The satisfaction I felt after was on a whole new level and to top it all I got time with all three kids because we created an assembly line. The youngest was incharge of holding pieces that we identified from the whole clump. Big job for a tiny chap with the attention span of a house fly -I'll tell you that! My daughter gave us a running commentary the whole time on the joys of Lego- she is project management material already! My oldest and I did the rest of the job.

I realise that Lego teaches us many life lessons but personally I found that it revealed to me just how fast I need results and how confident I am in doing things my way with my limited understanding of a picture.

I needed big picture vision. Which meant I needed to accept that there will be delays, detours and disappointments along the way but they should not deter me from going after the big picture. I also needed to accept that there will a step by step process, unavoidable tasks and mundane appointments which will lead to that picture gradually appearing. Like in the Lego world there can be no shortcuts. I haven't done Lego after that day because I need a very different mind set and time frame to devote that much time to it. I will get back to it with my kids (if my daughter condescends to take it out of her drawer) and will begin to create something new with the same blocks so that if nothing else, I learn to follow the manual and get that picture perfect finished product.