“While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.” ~Angela Schwindt
When you’re young, anything seems possible. Whether you want to become a school teacher, a ballerina, or an astronaut, it all feels within your reach.
And you so easily get excited by it.
You can visualize in vivid detail what it would be like to hold your roses at curtain call, or how proud you’ll feel when you save the day—as a fireman, a soldier, or maybe even a superhero. You pretend your way through different roles and stay open to different ideas of who you are.
You might know what you like and don’t, and you probably aren’t afraid to vocalize it, but you haven’t yet learned how to get stuck in your ways. You’re too curious for that. That would be boring.
Though you knew back then that sticks and stones might break your bones but names could never hurt you, you did get hurt sometimes. You cried when a bully teased you, or you couldn’t get something you wanted.
But the next day you were back swinging and giving underdogs at the playground, smiling and dreaming new dreams again.
Then life happened. Maybe time and experience taught you to worry, fear, and limit yourself, and you slowly became a person younger you wouldn’t want to play with. You started playing by rules that no one even gave you. You stopped imagining possibilities and believing that you could meet them.
And worst of all, you started thinking that it’s something the world did to you—not something you choose, moment to moment. (more…)
