the value of being still or silent or leaving alone

I think this blog needs another name change and another focus.  Things are going quite well and I just don't feel like talking about it.  Although I did have a lesson with notPierre a while back.  That was fun and productive.

I have a story I want to tell.  I don't think I've told it before on this blog but if I have, too bad, I need to tell it.

At that moment I hadn't ridden in, oh, about 5 or six years probably.  I was doing what was perhaps the most stupid placement of my career in social work, and ironically it was at the place I would later work.  Talk about holier than thou b*llsh*t.  Anyway.  The "thing" that day was to take all these kids to a local stable to ride.  With a lot of kids they had to dig deep into the stable and they pulled out a horse that they said needed an experienced rider.  I held up my hand to volunteer for that job.  Before I got on I asked them what his problem was and they said that he was fine, really, he just refused to stand still so that he would move around while everyone was waiting to get on, get started, and get off.

So I got on him.  And sure enough he moved one way and then another and tried to walk and jigged his head around and did anything at all except be still.  And I did what I do.  Whenever he was still I left him alone.  Whenever he moved, I blocked him.  Within just a few minutes he was standing perfectly still.  One of the workers noticed and called the others' attention to him.  Being still.

We had an uneventful trail ride.  There was only that.

You see, you do not have to micromanage everything in the whole wide world.

You just have to know when to shut up.