Everyone loves to look at a child. Not many, however, would find an elderly person as interesting or fascinating. We are inadvertently drawn towards a child and its actions. It's also true that every one of us wishes to look younger than our age. Why do we like children? Is it our own desire to look cute, play without inhibitions with no fear of reprimand or something else?
What attracts us first, and what makes an impact on us, is the child's innocence. Even the stoniest of hearts melts before the innocence of a child. Nothing can escape the child's guileless love that equalises all — whether rich or poor, worthy or unworthy. The child has never faced pangs of jealousy or manipulation and has never tried to impress others but does that what he feels happy doing.
To live like a child one must forego the obsession to please others. People will never be pleased even if you stand upside down for them. One out of hundred ways is enough to displease them, leave aside the ninety-nine things done in their favour, suiting their temperament. So why waste time and energy conniving ways to gratify others? From the bottom of one's heart, everybody likes truthfulness as compared to the superficial ways of impressing others.
For many of us today, often stressed at work and home, experiencing child-like joy has become a rarity. Everything is a chore; we place ourselves on a perpetually moving treadmill, trudging our way through life. Or we put ourselves in a rocking chair, going forwards and backwards, lulling ourselves into believing all is well, when in actual fact we go nowhere.
When a child goes up and down a staircase, he finds immense joy in the act — which, to us, seems completely un-productive. There is no visible gain in the process but the child is overjoyed whereas we find it useless. We prefer to get enslaved, busying ourselves to preparing endless 'to do' lists, most of the 'to dos' never get done.
Why have we forgotten how to be joyful? We don't giggle or break into peals of laughter spontaneously — things we did as a child. An average adult laughs heartily from his belly barely or not even once during a 24-hour period. A child is a born optimist.
He experiences joy in every action, because he is oblivious of the result. He is always in the present. He has the fortune to 'realise' the simple joy of being. Adults, on the other hand, tend to either brood over the past or worry about the future, thereby letting slip the precious present.
The mother takes care of the child's every need — expressed or otherwise — because the child has surrendered to her unconditionally. As adults, we forget spontaneity. We want things to be done as per our choice, not as per His will.
Swami Vivekananda said: "Let never more delusive dreams veil off thy face from me/ My play is done O Mother, break my chains and make me free".
Shed your inhibitions; dance like a child. Be spontaneous; laugh heartily. Look at work and home with new eyes — with the eyes of a child: discover the joy of simple pleasures, learn to live life joyously. Life is not a chore, it is a journey of discovery.