Be the Child in You

"We grow up and we are never the same again!"

While growing up, we seldom realize the gradual change in ourselves. In the quest of materialistic success we tend to forget the undergoing psychological changes in ourselves. All we care about is the future, and in order to have a bright future we keep working blindly, totally unaware and careless of the subconscious changes taking place in us. So we keep getting away from the child in us. We keep getting covered with an artificial aura. We lose our natural instincts, we lose our innocence, we loose our inquisitiveness, we loose our truthfulness; we in fact become a new person- a different person altogether. But the irony is that we love those childhood days and in fact sometimes we wish we were still child!! Why don't then we simply be the child in us? Why do we let ourselves change so drastically?

Once I had gone to meet 'Mitthi'- my Jijaji's niece. I was meeting her after 3-4 yrs. Last she was just 4 yrs, and now she had turned 8, studying in 4th Std. She recognized me easily but was really shying off. Thankfully, I had brought lots of chocolates to bribe her. I was feeding her chocolates and chatting with her. I was coaxing her to come with me to my home. I said- "तुम मेरे साथ मेरे घर चलोगी? 2-3 दिन रहना, चाची (my didi) से भी मिल लेना, और फिर हम तुमको वापस पहुंचा देंगे." She said- "नहीं, हम मम्मी के बिना नहीं जायेंगे, मम्मी जाएगी तभी जायेंगे." I said- "Plzz चलो ना." She again replied in negative. I said- "नहीं चलोगी? :( :( Plzz चलो ना :( " She said- "आप तो एकदम बच्चों जैसे कर रहे हैं" !! I was left amused at her straight, innocent reply. But later, I was also left pondering over the changes in her. She thinks acting your natural self is childish!! Back then when she was 4 yr old, she definitely wouldn't have said the same thing. But now she has grown up a bit, now she thinks that grown up people needs to act serious, not behave sentimental in front of others.

The surrounding environment changes children a lot. We start undergoing change from the very childhood. First our parents teach us the right and wrong, how to behave,how to react and all; and later, when we have grown up a bit, we ourselves start observing and learning from our surrounding. Friends, teachers, books, magazines, TV; these start changing our behaviour. Unfortunately, almost none of these teaches us to preserve some of the most needed childlike traits. We learn, we evolve, we grow up and we are never the same again!!

Many will say that we can't carry our childlike traits for long. We have to keep evolving, keep changing with growing age so this entire talk of being the child stands nowhere. Well, true to some extent. Of course we can't remain the same always. We need to change, keep adapting, but to what extent?? Sadly, being surrounded by shrewd minded people all around us, most of us, in order to cope up, change so much that we totally lose the child in us. We become a completely changed person. We start taking things too seriously, we stop having fun, we start hiding our natural emotions, we start taking a pragmatic approach (to things) rather than acting on our natural instincts.

Children are one of the most marvelous creation of God. They say "God resides in small children." Look at a child's behaviour intently, it is so fascinating. The innocence, the truthfulness, the frankness, the inquisitiveness, the easy-to-mix-up friendly nature.... everything looks so lovely, so enchanting (and that's the one reason we love children). But unfortunately, we tend to lose all those qualities one by one. As we grow up, we start departing from our natural self and keep drifting towards an artificial being.

But why is it so hard to be the child?!! I don't think it's really so difficult that we change ourselves so much. Try for it, throw your artificial aura, embrace some of those childlike traits back, you will love it. You won't lose anything by being your natural self. You will, in fact enjoy the new experience. So go ahead, 'Be the Child in you'!! :)