“Mistakes are allowed mom.”
Wise words from a child sage.
We don’t give kids enough credit. We think it’s our job to teach them. But they’re the real wisdom-keepers on this spinning globe. Sure, their literary repertoire is basically limited to rudimentary rhymes centred around anthropomorphic animals and self-driving construction vehicles going through various states of crisis - when’s the last time you heard of a bulldozer being ‘too sad‘ to demolish a building, eh? But these kids sure understand the rhythms of life. They remind us about what we’ve forgotten to remember. They cut through the noise. They find joy in warped tree trunks and lay on their backs marvelling as the clouds morph into zombies and megalodons, when for so long, we’ve forgotten to look up. They lick the brownie bowl and laugh in the mirror at their chocolate covered faces. They make terrible art and smile with pride when you hang it on the wall. They mispronounce common words and dance without regard for the beat. They make socially awkward comments to strangers. They have wack-ass meltdowns and public tantrums that would get most adults committed on a psych hold. They’re clingy af, and they ask for love in some of the most unloving ways.
They thunder through mud puddles on rainy days because they understand that they have no control over weather conditions and simply embrace whatever the moment has to offer.
And then they look at us big people with all our anxieties, frustrations and to-do-lists and probably think, “hey, just be simple.”
This is because they intuitively understand the fundamental secret of life: that the beautiful space of human experience encompassing ‘right now’ is more important than the moment preceding it or coming after. Not that those moments don’t matter, but they’re just the pillars and the furnishings to the house you’re building. They aren’t the final masterpiece.
I’ve been doing this ‘self’ work for a long time, but I’ve been resisting that core lesson. It’s hard to undo lifelong patterns of self-punishment and self-condemnation. It’s hard to say ‘no’ to throwing myself into things a hundred percent and having unmet expectations.
But it’s time to just be simple…