Some Things Just Take Time

As I was getting my hair braided for a few hours I had a lot of time to think. I kept seeing Ghanaians walk by with heavy loads on their heads. This is commonplace. Hardly anyone carries things in their hands. Even purses sometimes are carried on their heads so that they have their hands free. They even carry their children on their back wrapped up like a little Jo-Jo kangaroo.

As Americans we cannot carry these heavy things on our heads because our necks are not strong enough. We have not trained our muscles to carry such weight and so it continues to amaze me the amount of weight that is carried on the head of these beautiful Ghanaians.

I had an experience that doesn’t exactly relate but it is close enough. One day in my ASL class my eyes were getting so tired I could hardly keep them open and I looked around to see that many other students in my class felt the same way. After serving my mission among the Deaf society, learning ASL, and being an interpreter I have learned something about those of us who hear. Our eyes are very weak. It is amazing to me how lazy our eyes are! We actually rely on our hearing much more than we would ever imagine. Just think about when you are in class, or in a meeting, or at church. Often we don’t look at the speaker, or teacher and we are writing notes, looking at something else, or day dreaming. Yet because of our hearing we can multi-task. When a person is deaf they have to be watching not only the teacher or speaker but sometimes also their interpreter. Thus their eyes are very strong.

In both these examples it is true that you can gain a strong neck or strong eyes but it takes a lot of work-sometimes it takes years to gain the strength you need to accomplish the task at hand. I think this is true about a lot of little things in life. We are currently in the “instant gratification” stage in America where we want everything now. Some things just take time.