This video made the rounds in our community recently, and more than one of us nearly spilled our coffee laughing.
A baby turtle, just doing his turtle thing. Slow. Steady. Inching across the floor like he has nowhere to be until Thursday.
Then his owner sets him on a tiny toy skateboard.
And suddenly this little guy is zooming across the room, blowing past the family cat like he just discovered his inner race car driver.
Several of us have watched it more times than we’re willing to put in writing. Beyond being ridiculously cute, it may be one of the best pictures of possibility thinking we’ve ever seen. Because a lot of us are living like that turtle before the skateboard shows up. Moving through our days the way we always have, telling ourselves, “Well, this is just how it’s done.”
Then somebody hands us a new tool, a new idea, a new way of seeing.
Game. Changer.
The truth about crawling
Crawling feels safe. It’s predictable. We know exactly how long everything takes, because it has always taken exactly that long.
But predictable can quietly turn into stuck, and many of us don’t notice the moment it happens. We’ve seen it in our community more than once: a routine that held us together during a hard stretch, carried long after the hard stretch ended, and called “being strong.”
Here’s what we love about the turtle. He didn’t change his legs. He didn’t grow wings. He didn’t go out and become a cheetah. He changed his vehicle. Same turtle, same stubby little legs, and now he’s outrunning the cat.
That may be what possibility thinking actually is. Not pretending to be something we’re not. Just being willing to ask whether there might be a better way to carry what we already are.
Same turtle. New wheels.
Where a lot of us get stuck
When it comes to our emotional and mental well-being, many of us get so used to coping our way that we stop asking whether there’s a kinder way. We’re not stubborn. We’re loyal. Loyal to the first thing that ever got us through.
- We’ve always pushed through, so we keep pushing, assuming running on empty is simply the price of showing up for everyone.
- We lean on the one coping tool we picked up years ago. Stay busy. Keep it to ourselves. Wait it out. It worked then. Many of us never went back to check whether it still works now.
- We carry it all ourselves, because “nobody else should have to deal with this.” Though, to be fair, we may not have given anyone the chance.
And for those of us supporting someone we love, the pattern can look almost identical. We take on everything, we use the same words we’ve always used, and we wonder why nothing seems to shift.
But what if the reason we feel capped, exhausted, or stuck isn’t us at all? What if it’s our “mode of transportation?”
Try a new set of “wheels”
Here’s where the skateboard moment comes in. It’s rarely about reinventing ourselves. It’s about upgrading the vehicle we’re riding. Three small places many of us have found a good start:
- Running on empty? Block some white space on the calendar. As sacred and non-negotiable as we can manage, for a walk, a nap, a prayer, a phone call with someone who gets it, or simply breathing. Wild thought: the world tends to keep spinning if we take an hour to reset. Plenty of us have tested this personally. The phone survives.
- Leaning on the old coping playbook? Try one new tool that fits who we actually are. A three-line gratitude note in the phone before bed. A support group, in person or online. A breathing practice, a journaling app, a podcast on the drive home. A real conversation instead of “I’m fine.” Nobody has to white-knuckle their way through.
- Carrying it all alone? Hand off the one thing that drains us most. Let someone bring dinner. Say yes when a friend asks what they can do. And for those of us walking beside someone in crisis, this may mean letting a counselor, a doctor, or a trained listener carry the parts that were never ours to carry alone.
Each of these is a “skateboard moment.” They might feel weird at first. They might even feel like cheating. But what if “cheating” is just what we call a smarter vehicle before we’ve gotten used to it?
There may be real science under the cute video, too. Psychologist Todd Kashdan has spent years studying curiosity, and his 2007 work with Michael Steger suggests that people who stay open to new experiences tend to report more meaning and well-being in daily life. The turtle, it seems, was onto something.
The power of a hand on the skateboard
Here’s the kicker: turtles don’t usually stumble onto skateboards by themselves.
Sometimes we need someone outside our current box to hand us the tool that changes everything. A friend. A counselor. A support group. Someone in this community who slides the coffee across the table and says, “Hey, what if you tried it this way instead?”
Many of us have been on both sides of that table. And the view from the turtle’s side is a lot more fun once the wheels are on.
One honest word before we roll
If we’re in crisis right now, a new habit isn’t the first move. Reaching out is. A doctor, a counselor, or a crisis line (in the U.S., call or text 988) can put wheels under us faster than anything in this article. Reaching for that care isn’t weakness. It might be the most empowering thing we do.
If we’re loving someone through a crisis, the skateboard might be for us too. We can’t carry anyone across the room on our backs, no matter how much we love them. What we can do is make sure there are wheels under us, so we’re still standing when they need us.
And if we’re simply someone who cares about living with a healthier heart and mind, with no crisis in sight, wonderful. That’s the whole point of this community. Possibility thinking isn’t only for the hard days. It may be how we make the ordinary ones more meaningful.
The cat is waiting
There’s more in each of us than any circumstance, situation, or condition. We believe that. And we believe our lives deserve more than crawling speed.
So the question may be: do we keep inching along in the same patterns, or are we ready to strap on some wheels and see what we’re really capable of?
If something in this piece has us looking sideways at our own routines, we’d love to hear about it. Tell us below: what’s one new wheel we’ve tried lately, or one we’re curious about?
And if we’re ready to put wheels under someone else, that’s exactly what this community is built for. An hour of our time, a donation, or simply our attention helps put treatment, support, and hope within reach for someone who’s still crawling. Here’s how to get involved →
Because the cat is waiting. And we’d love nothing more than to watch each other zoom right past it.
With love and hope,
Colleen and The Standing Tall Igniting Hope Team
