“Child is the father of man” or so goes the saying.  Most of us will recall that the best years of our lives were when we were kids.  We did what our heart wanted without worrying about what others thought about it.  As we grow up, we tend to live for others.  We act the way others want us to do.  We have lost the child in us and this is indeed very sad.

We find it difficult to laugh or cry every day when we feel like doing. Smile replaces laughter because we start believing that the world will laugh at us if we are too loud.  In situations where we feel like crying, we hide our emotions since we are conditioned to believe that adults do not cry.  If you cry, you are kid and have not grown up.  This leads to our conditioned behaviour.  It is almost like the air conditioned environment that we are used to in our offices and homes today and we have forgotten the heat of the summer, the gush of the rains or the chillness of the winter.

I sometimes wonder how beautiful life would be if we can continue to be our natural selves.  Imagine dancing in the rains and getting wet at the onset of monsoon.  It would be fun to sit on the sea shore and play with sea shells in the sand.  I remember enjoying raw cut mangoes on the beach with family and friends during vacations.  The joy of travelling by train with family on a long summer holiday appears a bygone era.

Who do we blame for losing the child in us ?  We can conveniently blame our education system.  We can blame our parents and elders for not allowing us to enjoy life as a kid and forcing us to behave like adults even before we grew into one.  But, I would blame myself more than anyone else.  Nothing stops me to sit and cry if I feel like doing so even today as an adult.  There is nothing which stops me at laughing at myself and jumping in joy.

We have become less adaptable to the environment around us.  We find it difficult to cope with situations of joy or sorrow and hence want to be behave like conditioned beings.  It is easier for us to hide our emotions than to express it.  We are guarded in our behaviour at home, work and in the community.  The day we learn to be our natural selves, we may be able to rejuvenate the child in us.

It is time to laugh and cry when we feel like.  It is time to express ourselves with everyone around us the way we feel like.  Let us rekindle the kid in us.  The best outcome of this change will be our ability to bounce back from the troughs in our life.  We will also be able to deal with crests with equanimity.  We can see children bounce back from sorrow even before we realise it.  We also see children sharing their joy with others and not riding on a sense of pride always.

It’s time to bring back the child in us as in the photo above.

The time to start is now and the day to start is today.  It does not matter how old or young you are.  Our physical age is just a number.  We need to live life as if a tomorrow does not exist.  We need to learn to enjoy life and share our joy with others.  There is no better way to do it than the way children do it.  It is time to learn and it is time to learn from the kids around us.

Let us regenerate the child in us from today.

S Ramesh Shankar