Adults often scrutinize children about a lack of understanding of life. Too many times in my childhood I was told, “you’re too young to get it,” and “one day you’ll learn.” However, these remarks didn’t protect me from the circumstances and problems that my parents or other adults were trying to conceal from me. If anything their attitude stimulated me to think that something was wrong.

The adult society looks down on children and young adults alike, as if we are unable to comprehend the horrors of the world and everyday existence. The mere fact that we are able to acknowledge their attempt at creating a protective shield is evidence that we are more intellectually inclined than adults think. At some point in everyone’s life, there is an event or period of time where your childhood naivety, hopefulness, and free spirit is partially or completely robbed from you. The protective shield that has safe guarded you becomes obliterated, sadly, long before you are ready to give up the easy spirit of childhood.

The divide between childhood and adulthood is not characterized by the age of 18, but rather by the transformation that occurs within you at a given time. The silly, spontaneous, and simple human being will become a person who is rigid, time-obsessed, and prideful. Adults claim they know it all while making those younger than them feel like an outcast when in actuality adults are the ones who are foreign to the reality that they don’t have all the answers.

The three hardest words most adults will ever say are “I don’t know.”

This is a term that young people use often when questioning the curious mysteries of life. In my opinion, probing life is a beautiful art, and the more we challenge thoughts, the happier we will be. In a busy world it is hard to stop and truly contemplate our existence, but when we do we can be transported back to the young boy or girl who so profoundly wondered why the sky was blue.

Though we can return to our early state of mind by challenging ideals and looking at life more positively, once we lose our innocence it’s almost impossible to retain. You see, the knowledge that makes us cherish innocence is the very thing that makes innocence unattainable. If you can understand what I mean by this, chances are you have faced some sort of hardship that makes you long for simpler times of the past. However, here’s the catch -- the more you long, the more difficult it is to attain.

Then again, with a world that is constantly looking forward, it’s important to remember to look backward at what once was (as long as we do not live in our past fantasies). It’s vital for our happiness that we continue to harness the imagination, beauty, and faith that our old, young soul once attained. The two contrary states of the human soul, youth and elder, make up who you are as a person, whether or not one or the other is currently dormant. By allowing both the power of self-expression you are sure to find the perfect balance between the two different states of life. In fact, your inner child can teach your current self many beautiful points in order to experience the world fully. A child can teach an adult to be happy for no reason, to always be curious, and to fight tirelessly for a cause, minus the temper tantrums. The younger generations will soon come to find that they are the ones who should be scrutinizing adults for their skewed mindsets and objectives rather than the other way around.

Ultimately, the experience called life will destroy innocence, but with much imagination and connection to one’s inner child, it will also lead you back to it, enriching the present and enhancing the future you.