Why Can’t We Be Like Kids?

In three months I will turn eighteen and that means I will be an adult. Which means I will do adult stuff, like complaining about the economy and paying my taxes, which should be fun but two months away from adulthood, something struck me, it was this:

What’s wrong with behaving like a child?

Let me explain it to you, the other day I was at the local park and some children were running around playing with sticks. They were having fun and so I decided to teach them how to make a slingshot, which is something I used to play with as a kid. Suddenly, their parents came running up to me and started asking questions like:

Why are you teaching our kids violent stuff?

Do you care about your public image?

Absurd, right? It got me thinking about my childhood, I used to pick my nose and run around the neighbourhood aimlessly with other kids screaming whatever came to our minds. We used to study the athletes and rappers, we all wanted to be cool, and I think that’s where we went wrong.

We want to be cool but we don’t want to be authentic!

When you are a kid you are authentic, you watched Pokemon because you wanted too, not because of societies pressures or because it would have got you more followers or more money.

Adults are obsessed with shopping because of other people, they buy things they do not want to, to impress people they do not like. They waste money on stuff to show it off a couple of times and then they complain about their financial situation.

I had a Ben 10 watch when I was a kid, I used to wear it every day to school, I used to wear at weddings and birthday parties, it was a part of me. I used to wear it so much because I enjoyed it, It made me feel like I was Ben 10.

We live in a world who only cares about quantity, we want more money, we want more stuff, we want more ass, we want to be sexier and fitter, we want all these things without a purpose, there is no concrete reason why all these things are necessary.

Without purpose, there is no meaning, without meaning, can you truly be happy?

I knew my purpose behind buying that watch, it was because I thought I could turn into Ben 10, I used to play with the older kids because they were fun and I used to get free ice cream from them, my happiness was my priority, I did stuff to make me happy, not to make anyone else happy.

When we buy stuff to impress others and make them happy, our happiness depends on them. When they are not happy, we slip into this downward spiral where we feel like idiots and then we start complaining about how depressed we are.

If you look at most of the world, adults especially, their heads are down on their phones, they’re reading the news or catching up on the latest trends, they forget about the present moment and escape to this virtual reality, they do this with the knowledge that time is finite.

When we were kids the present was all that we had, I used to cycle around the neighbourhood looking for my friends and once I would find them, we would do anything ranging from nerf battles to playing tag in the playground. We were not holding our phones in our hands, we were just living in the moment taking every second in until it became a lasting memory in our heads.

Do you remember how easy it was to say I don’t know as a kid? I used to say it all the time, yet as I grow older I find it increasingly difficult to say, I do not have a speech impediment, it’s just that I don’t wanna look stupid, my ego kicks in, does this sound familiar?

Every day as a kid was a new adventure, we looked forward to meeting our friends and discussing the latest episode of Dragon Ball Z, as adults most of our days are the same, get up, go to work, come back, do whatever you want to in the evening, go to bed and repeat. It is like Groundhog day, wheres’ the fulfilment in that?

If you don’t enjoy something every day, if you do not love what you do, then you need to reconsider your options while you can.

Kids can be difficult, ask a parent, being a kid can be difficult, ask a kid, but that does not stop them from being kids or parents, sometimes it may feel the whole world is against them but does that stop them? No, then why do adults feel like quitting when faced with difficulty?

The curiosity we had as children helped us find the solutions to our problems when we grow older the curiosity withers and dies, we slowly but surely become caught up in our ways, we become too rigid to change, our habits weave together until we become this thick piece of string that’s too strong.

Adults take themselves too seriously, they are too afraid to let loose and have fun but that was so easy to do as a child, at the end of the day, we are all in our submarines and as we dive deeper into this sea of life the pressure builds, do not let this pressure get to your head otherwise this deep dive into life will kill your joy and you will become lifeless.

To conclude this article, I want to ask you again:

What’s wrong with behaving like a child?

I hope this article adds value to your life.