Childhood

When I was a child, I remember always wanting to grow up. To be able to buy my own toys, have millions of dollars, no bed time, and spend everyday doing what I wanted. No school, no vegetables, nothing I didn't want. That is what I thought being an adult meant. No responsibilities. As I got older, I missed being a child. I missed being ignorant about certain things. The older I got, the more difficult life seemed to become. I told myself it was because I was focusing on bigger things now, bigger problems, and that with age came greater responsibilities. I believed that. Now that I am much older than I was in those days, I see now why my problems have become larger and more complex. It's not because of my age, it was because I knew so much more than I had when I was young. The more you learn, the more you think you know.

 The truth is is that we judge everything in our lives. Everything. We see a flower, and immediately look away, having seen a million flowers before. We see the sun, the stars at night, rainbows, thunderstorms, and we are no longer as impressed by life as we once were. We think we know what it is. Our brains tell us exactly what we're looking at, we classify it as something we know, and we discard the natural beauty and perfection of life. When you're a child, you have NO idea what things are, what we see, what we feel, or hear is overwhelming simply because we don't know what it is. And with that comes fascination and wonder. Everything is new and that's where the problem begins. We desperately attempt to know and understand everything around us, leaving no room for amazement or curiosity. No magic. We get used to our surroundings and we adapt to them. Once I realized this, I decided to turn over a new leaf in my views of the world. Literally. I began questioning everything I saw each day. I forced myself to recall every piece of information I had heard throughout my life, trying to find a new way to look at things. But I was quickly disappointed. I could see the beauty, but I didn't feel as connected to the Earth as I once had as a child. With that thought came a revelation. I couldn't see the beauty because I was trying way too hard to actually see something. I had expectations of what life would look like and when it didn't come out that way, I was so disappointed and ashamed that I was so blind. Could life really lose it's beauty like this? I once read a Buddhist quote that said; "To truly be happy, one must see through the eyes of a child." Before I hadn't really understood that quote, but I do now. A child has no expectations about life, about anything really. And that is what we must do. We must stop ourselves from judging everything we come in contact with. Leave some room in your day for amazement and wonder. Start small and work your way up. Hold a flower in your hand and meditate on the perfection of this living organism. Focus on the stars, but don't put constellations together. This isn't going to come out right, but pretend that you know absolutely nothing of what you're looking at. Don't try to figure anything out. Allow your curiosity to flow through your body. When you stop yourself from judging anything in this life, you allow yourself to be amazed, you allow yourself to find the beauty in every living thing on Earth. That alone is enough to bring someone happiness and joy.


-Ace