Live as a Child

Is it really possible to rediscover the joy, that carefree attitude that most of us remember from our childhood? Nothing in adult life is fashioned to encourage us to take pleasure in the simple things in life anymore. Should we? More importantly, could we even if we wanted to?

I had not loved enough. I’d been busy, busy, so busy, preparing for life, while life floated by me, quiet and swift as a regatta. –Lorene Cary.

How quickly time passes, doesn't it? It seems only yesterday that I was sixteen and planning for the future. Thoughts of university, work, boyfriends and whether my friends really were my friends filled my adolescent head. That was over twenty five years ago and it's passed in the blink of an eye.

If I think back over my life to when I was young, pondering all my hopes and dreams for the future, they seem so simplistic and idealistic now. I wanted love, happiness and security. I thought that by the time I was thirty, which then seemed so old, everything in my life would be perfect.

Of course, life never runs as smoothly as that. Many trials and tribulations seem to seek to thwart us and weigh us down.We lose sight of the hopes and dreams that we held for our future just by getting on with our daily lives. So much time is spent at work, home and on the family, organizing, planning, dealing with small and not so small crises when they arise. One day we turn round and what was once a fire in our belly is now realization that it turned to ashes because we forgot to tend to it.

But phoenix-like, we can rise again. Free will is a double edged sword. The choices that we made in life, of our own free will, that diminished those hopes and dreams, are in the past now. We can choose differently at any given moment.

Regret for those choices is a waste of time and emotion I feel, because they were the only ones we could have made at that particular moment. Even what we may have perceived as ‘bad’ choices at a later date, were still our conscious choices….that’s why we chose them then, at that time, because they seemed the ‘right’ thing to do. They weren’t bad choices, they were just choices.

We can use that same free will to decide to do it differently. Today, now, in the present. Spend time on yourself, doing what you want to help you realize those hopes and dreams, rather that what you feel you ‘must’.

It’s a question of perception. There are no "must"s, just our own interpretation of our priorities. Too often it takes a crisis in our lives for us to recognize that and really see clearly how much time we have wasted on the mundane. Life is for living and loving, not just a way to pass the hours until we run out of it. No one can be sure of how much time they have, so it makes sense to live life to the full in all its glory.

A day out-of- doors, someone I loved to talk with, a good book and some simple food and music — that would be rest. –Eleanor Roosevelt

We can gain much pleasure from the simple things in life, as we did as children.Take time to stop and smell the roses. Show love to your family and friends and be sure to tell them. Be kind to all that you meet.

We don’t need to wait for the crisis to happen to decide to live life in a more peaceful, contented way. We can choose to do it today. Appreciate, acknowledge, and be thankful for every day.

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much . . . who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul. –Bessie Anderson Stanley

I said at the beginning that I look back at how I felt when I was young and think it was simplistic. On further reflection, I don’t. I think it was right. It was my pure thoughts before I was tainted by ‘normal life’. The competitiveness, the greed, the deceit, the manipulation that are seen as acceptable to most.

If that’s normal life, I’d rather choose to discard it and live again as a child, in the days where nothing was impossible and achieving hopes and dreams was a certainty, not a dim memory.

Make today a day for family. Live it as a child. Spend more time with the kids and grandkids than in the kitchen, forget about the dishes for a while and enjoy just being around your loved ones. Choose to step away from any conflict you see arising and remember how blessed you are to have family and friends in your life when so many are alone. Recall good times instead.

Today is a great day to shape memories, have fun and share love and laughter.