稚子之心

愛、生活、人生系列

稚子之心
孩子原比成人更懂得快樂之道，有位著名的心理學家，曾讓一群孩子列出使他們最快樂的東西。男孩們最快樂的是：看著燕子飛翔、俯瞰蔚藍的海洋、乘著小舟破水前進、望著列車奔馳、與小狗一同遊戲……。女孩們最快樂的是：欣賞河裏反映的燈光、林中的紅色小屋、炊煙冉冉上升、浮雲半遮月……等等。
雖然這些小孩說的都是稚氣話，但是不可否認的，因為他們比成人更有耐心去欣賞這世界上可以使他們快樂的事物，他們會比成人更快樂。如此看來，人生最愉快的事，莫過於與孩子們分享他們的樂趣。有位4歲的孩子說：「媽媽，不要再忙了，我們到外面看看，好好利用一下這個世界。」
一旦你長大成人，工作忙碌之餘，都忘了散散步、看看藍天、涉足溪水、或躺在草地的懷抱，織一串花環給心愛的人了……，這些閒情逸致，好像都離我們好遠。孩子會因為本身的幼小，比較容易看到「大世界中的小天地」。當他們彎下膝蓋，興奮地從地上挖出鏡片狀的雲母片，他們看到的是形如小鳥的石頭；或他們會看到密布石頭上如雪花般的青苔。一小片形狀像手套、顏色像聖誕紅的小樟樹葉，就讓他們樂得像得到滿山遍野神奇的寶藏似的。玫瑰花叢裏的蝸牛，讓人噁心，但是，孩子看到這些小東西，在葉片、石頭上爬過，而留下的銀白黏汁，就會著迷，認為那是通往神奇仙境的秘道。
有誰能決定一個人的一生是否快樂呢？只有他自己。只要對自己與週遭，充滿禮讚的心情：「一切都這樣稱心如意，世界是多麼奇妙啊……！」相信每個人的情緒，都會不由自主地快樂起來。想要享有快樂的人生，不妨隨時擁有一顆稚子之心─童真和稚情，向小孩學習。
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it’s our job as parents and as adults to teach our children everything they need to know about the world. But the truth is, there is a lot of lessons we can learn from children too.
Life Lessons We Can Learn from Children
Do you remember the carefree days of childhood? The days were long, our imaginations were huge and our ideas were epic—and maybe a tiny bit dangerous. Every day was a new experience and adventure, full of learning and discovery.
Then suddenly, in the blink of an eye, we’re no longer children—we’re adults.
Don’t get us wrong, being an adult is pretty awesome, but it’s also filled with lots of responsibilities and tough decisions. Slowly, but surely, that childlike wonder we had as kids is put in a box and tucked away in the attic of our brain. We put down our toys; we stop playing. We become more jaded, structured and less open to new experiences.
But as we grow into adulthood, we might be letting go of a little more than we should. While children often look to us as teachers, we often don’t consider what they could be teaching us. However, children can teach us so much about living life, about having hope and making the most out of any situations. In other words, we could actually relearn things from children.
The good news is that childlike wonder still lives inside us—no matter how old we are. It’s just a matter of embracing it.
1. Feel Our Feelings
Children leave their emotions on their sleeves. When they’re happy, they smile and laugh. When they’re sad, they cry. As an adult, we may attempt to control our emotions without acknowledging how we feel. We may adapt compulsive behaviors around stuffing our emotions, denying them, suppressing our feelings and forcing them into something more acceptable to the world and others. Of course, learning to manage our emotions is the key to many positive things in our lives—but, we cannot proceed to that step without first acknowledging how we feel. Sad things are sad. Hard things are hard. Getting older doesn’t change that!
2. Be Curious and Excited
Being inquisitive is how children learn. They push buttons, turn knobs, open drawers and have a million questions and hypotheses about nearly everything as they take in the enormity of this world. They aren’t yet burdened with worries about what others may think about their offerings. Self-awareness isn’t their conscious driver. It’s more concerning when children don’t have an audience than it is to be scrutinized or shamed.
We also have a little person inside of us with novel ideas and an innate desire to share. Yet, somewhere along the way, we lose that curiosity and excitement to learn new things and discover new places. If we can relearn to be curious like a child, it may just lead us to greater self-fulfillment and joy.
3. Be Fearless
Children jump, climb, fall and get right back up. As a kid, it’s almost expected rather than feared. We too have the capacity to accept or surrender to fear and dive into something new, but we’ve adapted to self-handicap, disliking the sting of failures. We can still be responsible; it’s not about being reckless but rather being willing to take risks.
4. Grow a Little Every Day (Even When It’s Hard)
When we’re young, growth doesn’t take conscious effort; it’s a natural occurrence that pretty much won’t be stopped. As we grow older, however, growth truly becomes a choice, and a hard one to embrace. Children show us that we will stumble, we may rage and we will have our feelings hurt at times. But if we allow ourselves to experience all these things, we may truly improve. If we fall down, mess up or make mistakes, we will still get right back up. Life is about learning. Of course, we can constantly learn from children no matter how old we are. It’s time to turn off our inner critical mind, and look around at a world beyond ourselves. We have to be open to change and be better today than we were yesterday. We, definitely, can have a heart of a child.

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