Todd Stadler's blog

Object lessons from Easters past

When I'm undertaking a large project, I have this bad habit of taking pride in my baby steps. Not that I have any large projects that I need to work on right now or anything.

But I'll get to a point where I can say "I've accomplished something" and be happy with that for a while. Like, say, I'll learn how to solve some problem with Javascript. Then I'll show some friends of mine, because I'm happy I solved the problem. But the larger project remains unfinished.

Part of this is just the problem with working on labors of love. There are no goals, no deadlines, and not even much of a push from whomever might peruse my work. I just work on it when other things in my life don't preclude me from doing so.

But I find that this behavior eerily parallels an event from my childhood - one that I remember vividly for no good reason. It was an Easter egg hunt when I was a wee lad. After some adult yelled "Go!", I frantically ran around, determined to find many eggs, cheap plastic basket held firmly in hand. When I found one, I was so happy I ran back to where all the adults were to show my mom. Look, Mom, an egg! I remember her smiling politely, happy that I was happy, but worried that in taking the time out to show her, I would likely miss out on the other eggs rapidly being discovered by older children, who were naturally more skilled egg hunters. So I delved back into the fray to find another egg. And when I did, I again showed my mom, because hey, I was proud. The memory kind of peters out there, but I think you get the point.

If not, the point is: Easter egg hunts are a good way to introduce your child to the spirit-crushing concepts of competition in a capitalistic marketplace.