What Children Can Teach Adults

 

Adults always think that kids have it better than them and they’re not wrong in having that thought. And me myself being a teenager and interacting with my fellow citizen pupils in this odd stage of life has told my younger siblings , ‘ Oh you’re just a child what do you know’ even though I myself am not legally an adult and still considered a child.

But the irony is that, to put it in the words of Paulo Coelho ‘ A child can always teach an adult three things, to be happy for no reason , to always be busy with something and to know how to demand with all their might that which they need’. It is not a surprise that 75% of the human adult population suffers from small amounts of depression this is something that most kids under normal life circumstances do not go through. Now why is that? Well , to quote Marianne Williamson ‘ Children are happy because they don’t have a file in their minds called “ All the things that could go wrong” ’I mean honestly think of it when has the so called analysis that we do before considering an option or means of work to put it in boring adult terms not caused a frown on our face and a state of sadness considering the endless possibilities of the event not occurring the way we want it to. To put in simpler words let me take an example, in sports if say Usain Bolt thought of what if I fall or change tracks or not do well at the starting line before the gun shot how is it gonna make him any confident and for that matter all it would do, would be to make him miss the gun shot and he wouldn’t be the amazing person we know today. Now I’m not saying that its bad to not know the consequences of one’s doing but that it shouldn’t hamper our state of mind. If you see a child they just want to do it. They don’t care about what's gonna happen. All they know is that it looks and sounds cool, so it would be cool and bring them happiness.

Now, if we were to pay attention to children they are just so curious and fascinated by anything and everything that comes their way. This enables them to learn so well at those prime ages. But as we grow older we tend to forget that there are far more things to learn then what we already know and that same curiosity and fascination gets lost. Learning becomes a burden and yet another reason of unhappiness. We see things with a different mind. Thinking that everything is the way it is because that is what is written. All that imagination that we had of travelling through space and being a tiny wee thing in this endless universe made us look at things above and beyond us and the determination to reach there. But as an adult one tends look at what's below and boast about his/her achievement. They get trapped in this bubble of I know this and I know that and what's this; oh I know everything but never try to pop that bubble, see what's outside and try to reach there.

As a child even the tiniest little pencil could be a monster gobbling them up or being destroyed by a thread of lava light, all this seems so unreal and just a silly imagination to an adult but it triggers the nostalgia and brings a sort of joy in one’s mind.

There are times in life when one should just let go of everything and be a child.  There are so many things and values that were taught by parents to children and were practiced then, but now forgotten in times past. It's just like saying something and not following it ourselves .Children just do what they’re told because they trust their parents and are humble little beings but as an adult one thinks they are on their own and are responsible for themselves therefore choosing to do what they may have been denied as a kid. Thus, adults tend to loose that humbleness and innocence that a child has. These are the values that adults teach their children but since there's no one to judge them they may or may not follow it themselves and majority falls into the latter.

Another such value is the manner of expressing love. In this text savey and never stopping for a break world lone is XOXO or a heart emoji or some kind of gift delivered to one’s doorstep. But for child Love isn’t the gift you get delivered to them or the messages you send to them but the time that is spent with them. And time is what seems to vanish as an adult it seems to be so not prioritized. Oh it’s prioritized alright but the priority is work and calls and all other boring stuff but not family. As a child one always hears about the love of a family and the closeness of it's family members. This is their priority.

To conclude an adult can and should learn how to be happy, let their imagination run wild and not curb it thinking it's lame, to not forget the values they learn from their parents and ignite that same fascination and imagination that one has as a child.