I was playing* Mouse Trap with my best friends’ 3 ½ -year-old son yesterday. My stepdaughter outgrew this game long ago, but I’ve kept it around for my friends’ kids and it’s been an unexpected hit.
Because it’s plastic and because it’s 8+ years old, the mechanism that deploys the trap is broken. Considering, I have to manually release the trap every time we play. However, the 3 ½ -year-old doesn’t seem to mind. He knows it’s broken, as I’ve explained it to him several times. So, yesterday, when the hippo plunged into the water, and I was late to manually deploy the trap, he said, “Yep, it’s broken. It needs batteries Auntie Jess.” I tried to explain to him that the game didn’t require batteries and therefore couldn’t be fixed with batteries. However, he was adamant, “Batteries can fix it.”
In this moment I realized that for this little guy, all of life’s problems (his toys breaking and/or not working) can be fixed with batteries. In this same moment I thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if all our adult problems could be solved by batteries? And then I thought, maybe they can.
When my husband and I are checking in with each other to see what our emotional, physical, and spiritual energy level is, we use these phrases: “What’s your battery level?” Or “How are your batteries?” With these questions, we’re checking to see if we’re fully charged or depleted. If we’re depleted, we then assess why, and how we can recharge.
We (my husband and I, and I think everyone), engage life best when we’re fully charged. We get the most out of our experiences, can face tough situations, and are most resilient, when we have full batteries. We bring the best version of ourselves to our relationships, our most creative and hardworking selves to our professions, and our most inspired selves to our interests and passions.
When we’re depleted, life can feel a bit lackluster, less vibrant, heavier, and perhaps even a bit suffocating, like we’re stuck in a mouse trap. When we’re drained, our relationships suffer, our jobs feel burdensome, and our interests and passions wane.
I think the 3 ½-year-old was right. Perhaps all our problems can be fixed with batteries.
*“Playing” is a misnomer. He’s not quite cognitively ready to understand and follow the rules of games, so we engage in dramatic play—we trap the mice, then we use the other animals to rescue the trapped mice.