Many years ago I bought my 7 year old daughter an  Oragami kit.  After dinner one night she decided to open it.  She made me a cup and a paper airplane.  I remember thinking to myself how fun it looked and asked her to hand me the Oragami book so I could find something amazing to make.

How hard can it be?

I believed I was more than capable of following instructions, so I proceeded to find something rather amazing so I could wow my daughter.  I finally settled on this rather difficult looking Dragonfly.

I thought to myself,

I will Instagram my amazing abilities when I am finished and show the world my Oragami prowess.

Dang those Oragami papers were tiny.  “Turn on the brighter light please!” I asked my daughter.  I sat down at the coffee table in her tiny chair and proceeded to fold, turn, flip, crease, pull, turn, pinch, pucker.  I was on a roll and then, on step 17, I realized I was stuck.

Where did I make a wrong fold or misplaced pucker?  All I know is that I sat staring at what resembled a wadded up piece of paper. The dragonfly didn’t even have wings yet.  There were at least 80 more steps to complete.

My ex husband and daughter were talking but I had tuned them out. I was determined. I was FOCUSED.  Maybe 20 minutes went by with me looking from the picture in the book to the mess in my hands.

Finally, I decided to call time of death.

I let out a very loud exasperated sigh and threw it across the table.  No matter how much confidence we have in our ability, or how focused we are, the result will sometimes inevitably be failure.

But on that night my daughter taught me a very important lesson.

She walked over to the folded, creased, pinched, wadded, crumpled, TINY, piece of paper and picked it up.  She looked at it very carefully for about a minute or so as if pondering its existence.

She looks at me,  smiled and said, “Good job mom!  You made me a set of chopsticks!”

I am so proud to be raising her.  Optimistic, motivational, inspirational, with a love for others and their feelings.  That night she taught me to always try because the end result might not meet your expectations but they might be exactly what someone else needs.