This isn’t going to be a ramble about how awesome kids are and how you won’t truly appreciate that until you become a parent, largely because I’m not a parent (personally I like sleeping, and listening to music that doesn’t include ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ and holidays that aren’t entirely centred around Disney World. Check out this brilliant piece of work by British stand-up comedian Michael McIntyre) and because I was originally going to call this ‘The Sad Truth About Growing Up’, but thought it was a bit too depressing for a title.
So, did you know that the average adult laughs about 40 times a day? That doesn’t seem too bad until you realise that the average child laughs over 400 times every day. Imagine that! Constant fun times.
The average four-year old also asks well in excess of 437 questions every day. Probably mostly ‘why?’ and ‘are we there yet?’ but again, I’m not a parent.
Curiosity is a wonderful thing. It helps us to learn more about our neighbours, the world around us and even ourselves. Asking questions is a great way to tap into that, but often we bite our tongues in case we say the wrong thing or look silly. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all made an effort to put aside our self-consciousness and unleash our pent up curiosity, just a little bit? Who knows where it might lead us?!
I challenge you to take a deep breath and ask five questions today, that don’t revolve around work or checking the time. And make sure you set aside plenty of time to laugh.
If you want to learn more about the wonders of childhood, you might want to check out our class The Age of Innocence?
The photo is borrowed and edited with thanks from Ernst Moeksis under a Creative Commons License.