Emerson is learning how to read and I’m the lucky guy who gets to teach him.   The other day Emerson wrote his first word: “mom.” Then he busted out “dad.” Then he was able to write his name by himself. (I get a little misty just typing that.)   I don’t hang on to much “stuff” but those first, handwritten words are now my most prized possessions.   Philosophically, it’s amazing to see how something that is super hard — like, for example, Emerson writing an “a” — suddenly becomes “easy.”   Of course, I might take more than a moment to celebrate the now awesome “a” and remind Emerson that there was a time when that was really hard.    And, we often quickly roll through the other things that were hard before they became super easy. If you were a fly on the wall of the Johnson house you might here something like this:   “Remember how you used to poop in your pants!” (We both get a kick out of that one.) “And, now it’s super easy to go in the toilet!”   “And, remember how you used to suck your thumb and it was super hard to stop? But then you decided to and BAM! Now it’s easy!”   “Remember when writing that ‘a’ was hard?! And NOW look at it! You make it look easy! WOW.”    Then we like to connect the dots between hard and easy.   Me: “How’d you get so good at doing that ‘a’?!”   E: “Practice.”   Me: “Yep. That’s how you get good at anything, huh?”   Together: “Practice. Practice. Practice.”   Me: “You can pretty much do ANYTHING you want, buddy, with enough practice!”   I have mist in my eyes as I type that.   And, I say the same thing to you (and, of course, to myself): “You can pretty much do ANYTHING you want, buddy, with enough practice!”   Only question is: What do you want? (Seriously. What do you really want in your life?!)   Ready to pay the price?   Here’s to pooping in the toilet and remembering that everything is hard before it’s easy.