It's so easy to explore as a kid. You hardly know anything yet. The backyard captivates you; hours breeze by with endless adventure. Poop jokes are the most ingenious works of art known to man. The only thing that runs through a kid's mind is how to have fun. It's their top priority. What happens to it all? What happens to us? And where does our happiness seem to wander off to?
In my experience, a little thing called pressure creeps in and forces this need for constant validation down our throats. But I believe most of us have the same issue. We make decisions because they are impressive, not because we actually want to make them.
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Somewhere along the way we lose bits and pieces of our personalities. We rush everything and become so focused on our success that many of us lose our liveliness. Walking down the street is cringe worthy because every face that you glance at looks so drained. No one seems happy anymore. It's like an episode of "The Walking Dead," except with much less gore.
I understand that ignorance is bliss or whatever. When we were kids, we didn't think about how we were going to pay our bills nonetheless make a living. The more we learn about life, the harder it gets. It's the curse of knowledge. We try to think of ways to have fun, but we already have so much adult knowledge that we are blocked from reverting to our more blissful selves. We let this knowledge ruin us; drag us through the dirt and into a deep grave from which some of us never emerge.
So we try to find happiness elsewhere. In validation, in success, because we understand how the adult mind works, right? Or do we? Are we all suppressing something? We throw our personal wants and needs out the window for our material needs. I would ask you if your kid self would do that, but I recall a time when I jeopardized a friendship for a Hilary Duff doll. My point is, you would make much more of an effort to do what you loved if you cooled it with the perfectionism and enjoyed your life like a kid.
Pablo Picasso once said, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child." If you've seen some of his later work you've probably criticized it for being sloppy, and funny enough, childish.
Whether you like Picasso or not, he has a point when it comes to living life. Search inside yourself for the carefree, blissful tiny human you once were.
It might take four years to get a bachelor's degree and shove yourself into a career, but don't let it take a lifetime to connect with your inner child; the one who would never second guess being endlessly happy. Laugh at poop jokes, make poop jokes, go lie in the grass. Never stop exploring. Just find what makes you truly happy and let yourself be it.
