Happiness & Being Child-like
Jumping for joy is good exercise. ~ Author Unknown
It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. ~Berkeley Breathed
Good morning friends, first off today please read the title of this post carefully, Happiness and being child-like, not childish. One of the things that has always struck me about the Eastern philosophies (Buddhism, Taoism) is the idea of returning to your inner child. I think very often in the West this idea gets laughed at because when we hear or read this we think that means returning to acting like a child, it does not. This idea is not about becoming selfish, immature or escaping the responsibilities of life, not at all.
What this idea encompasses is the idea of returning to the joy, the wonder, the happiness of when life was innocent. Life is hard and eventually we all grow up, many of us, due to how hard life can be, grow up much, much too early. Returning to the inner child is to return to the time before that moment you grew up. Most people can’t identify that single moment, I’m one of the unlucky ones, I can. I can see it in my mind’s eye, remember the sounds, the smell, the feel of that very moment. It wasn’t until years later that I realized the significance of that night but I still remember it like it was last night.
Returning to your inner child is returning to the moment when you could spend an entire afternoon running and laughing in the sun. When laying on your back and looking at clouds felt like a day full of accomplishment. I often have moments, when I hear a child laugh, or catch the smell of cotton candy or baking cookies, when I truly feel, just in that moment like I did before that night, before I lost my innocence. If you can feel it for a moment, you can feel it for longer and that is what it means to return to your inner child and it is my greatest quest and I hope yours as well. There is a comic that perfectly summarizes this in my mind it’s by Berkley Breathed from his Outland comic. Good luck on that effort my friends and have a happy day ~ Rev Kane
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