What if the world operated in the way we teach our children?

Since my wife and I have become parents to our daughter, I have often asked myself this question, and as I was paging through my book for the first time in a few years recently, stopping at random pages, reading little bits here and there, I also came across the part where the bird talks exactly about this. How we teach our children to be honest and authentic, to be kind, not to lie, not to hit, not to hurt other people’s feeling, to apologize when we do.

We tell them that everyone is unique and should be treated with kindness and respect. We tell them that they are safe. I have not met a parent who does not have love overflowing while watching their children play with others in this way, knowing that they are seen for who they are, and that the other children are treated the same. No parent would ever wish harm upon their own or anyone else’s child, no matter who that parent is or where they are from. It is innate. The love we feel for our children is innate and beyond the limitations of this world.

The love that children express, exude, in fact are, is transcendent and that is why they will extend it to anyone freely. Everyone is always invited to the love fest that life is to them. They don’t think in categories of worthiness, they do not see difference, they are truly present to what is and their fresh egos are simply there to do their job, to store experiences and to aid in navigating this material world.

I wish everyday that my daughter and all other children would be able to stay in that experience, that state of unbridled curiosity and being. A place where kindness rules, where love and encouragement are the main attraction and sharing experiences is the main activity.

But now that she is getting ready to go to Kindergarten in the fall, I see how different things will become, how more of the ‘real world’ will begin to creep into her consciousness. How the older kids’ ego identification is setting her up to walk a similar path, and a part of me is deeply saddened by this, because I keep asking myself the ‘what if…?’

What if we as adults behaved more childlike? What if we were more authentic? What if we didn’t spread around our own judgments about everything, peddling them as ‘being honest,’ when we all deep down know that it is simply our judgment, and that it will add nothing to the world and hurt someone else’s feelings? What if we honestly tried our best to see the light in the person next to us? What if we sought out to connect with others, share a kind moment with them every single day, every single moment, to the best of our ability? What if we let ourselves be happy for others and let them know? What if we spread kindness and love to everyone we meet through a laugh, a kind word, a compliment, an encouragement? What if we sought to help others to become their best self? What if we stopped comparadging all the time? What if we allowed the world around us to be filled with love? What if we stopped taking life and other people so personally? What if we looked at life and everything in it as the miracle it truly is? What if we spoke up when we witness an injustice, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem? What if we assumed the best about each other?

What if we were all more childlike and aimed to create a world that reflected that, a world in which the love, joy and freedom we all remember from our own childhood was not limited to the first few years of our lives? What if we had a world in which all children get to have a childhood like this to begin with? To paraphrase L.R. Knost: Maybe it shouldn’t be our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world – our job should be to make the world less cruel and heartless.

What if we never had to utter the words: ‘Welcome to the real world.’

I am acting on my ‘what ifs’ as much as I can every day. I invite you to think of your own ‘what ifs,’ act on them, and see what happens in your life as a result.

Cheers,

Ralf