Oh, The Places You'll Go!

I think as a child that I would have resisted the book, Oh, the Places You’ll Go by the incredibly imaginative Dr. Seuss. The story involves a lovely, chummy little man who travels the world, encountering all sorts of friends and beasts and tells the reader that he or she can overcome and be successful through it all. But as an adult, who had already lived over 30 years on this earth, experiencing the ups and downs of life and the pursuit of them, I very much welcomed the book my father purchased for our first daughter when she was born.

I opened the book hesitatingly, because it was a larger size than the 7x10 or 6x8 of other children’s books that I had grown up with and had already received from other well-wishers welcoming our new baby. It also had many more words per page and was a deeper story.  Would my child understand it as I read it to her?

But the real reason for my hesitation, yet welcome, may have been that the story was a replication of what my father had instructed, preached, sermonized, encouraged and prompted me and my four other siblings to do our entire lives. “You’re a top ten percenter,” he said, “You can do whatever you want to do.” My father was very sunny about the future, not acknowledging the possible pain potential. This prompted me to consider, had I met what my father expected?

At the time that I received the book, I felt that I had met Dad's expectations. I had graduated from college early, obtained a successful job and moved on to more exciting jobs with greater expectations, relocated several times,  ran several marathons, and was happily married. So what was holding me back?

I suppose that through my successes, I had also had failures. I had made more than one C in college, went through a divorce, been laid off twice, had endured medical conditions including brain surgery, and now had doubts about my success as a parent.

As I began to read the book to my child, and then to her younger sister, the words eventually came to be part of my new narrative for my children, mimicking what my father had told me. The difference was that as we read through the book, it acknowledged that there will be challenges, even though we will see success at the top. 

Now, it is a favorite book of mine that I love to read to my nieces and nephews, friend’s children, and anyone who visits the house and would like to be read to. I keep it on my living room bookshelf just in case.