Lessons From Childhood
When I was a child, I wanted to be a doctor. People asked me why and I said, “I want to save people who die because they can’t afford medical expenses. I want to make people happy”.
I didn’t know what it takes to become a doctor. All I knew was that every time I went to visit a doctor for my cough or fever, he would immediately set me right and save me from pain.
As I grew a little more older, I was asked what is it that I wish to become and I hesitantly replied, “I want to make lots of money to help the less privileged ones”.
And after few years, I was again asked, what is it that I would love to be and I excitedly said, “I would love to earn lots of money, own a big house, a nice car and a good life to fulfill all my dreams”.
So, the first wish which was then very close to my heart is something that most of the children share. When we are a child, we care for the world. We are kind. We want to be the change and make the change. We want to build beautiful bridges and not confined walls. We want to be brave in pursuing our passion. We are creative. We are fearless.
But as we tend to grow, we find ourselves slowly hustled into the competition of building our status, nurture our ego, defeat people to be successful, to fill ourselves first before helping others. We are so engrossed in building and accumulating things for ourselves that we forget the bigger purpose of our lives.
When we were a child there was not much analysis of the options or deep thought about how and what we wanted to do. We weren’t worried about what other people were saying about our choices.
As children we saw the world through curious eyes and found inspiration in everything. Instead of worrying about careers and bills, we spent every day living in the moment, seeking out happiness and joy.
And as we grew, we gradually started getting sucked into the cycle of consumption (real reason of being in the rat race). The longer we are caught in cycle of consumption, more the denial towards working for our own self. We are so conscious of other people’s opinions that we are unable to bring ourselves and our passion to an alignment.
But once we escape the cycle of consumption, we’ll be able to move freely and appreciate the world around us. We will be able to rediscover our inner child and be fearless in working towards the real and bigger purpose of our life.
And to live life in true sense it’s very important to live life like a child – BEING OURSELVES. Being curious, adventurous, confident, kind and fearless.
As Paulo Coelho rightly points out that, there are three lessons we can learn from our childhood attitude; to be happy for no reason, to always be curious and to fight tirelessly for something.