We know that you are tough, Dear One. We know that you are strong, and clever, and resourceful.  We know that you are extremely capable of coping with, adapting to, learning to live with, and working around obstacles, difficulties, and pain.

But the truth is that we don’t want you to be.

What we want Dear One, is that when you feel that splinter go in, when you feel that first little prick of pain, when that alarm sounds and you experience those first pangs of concern, distress, discomfort, hurting, or dis-ease, that you give your coping skills a rest for a change.

We don’t want to see you reach for your usual box of Band-Aids and show us, and the rest of the world, just how well you can adapt to it, cope with it, rationalize it, and keep on going.  What we want Dear One, is to see you reach for the tweezers instead.

We don’t want you getting better, and becoming more practiced, at learning to live with the little pricks in your life.  We want you getting better at removing them, while they are still small, before they have a chance to take root, evolve, spread, and grow and into bigger ones.