Lessons for a father - The Child In Us

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All of us are born with purity, love and curiosity. With time, however, this usually gives way to other things. Some good and some not so much. What we also lose out on, sometimes, is the freedom to do and be anything we want. Another characteristic of our childhood.

I miss that - those carefree days with neither fear nor concern for the unknown. All we were concerned about was playing more than we were allowed to (just 5 more minutes Mom!!!) and carrying on with a "devil may care" attitude.

Leadership, political correctness, inspiration and goals were something the adults were there to care about. We were there to have fun and nothing more.

Our son reminds me, daily, that it is his time to go through that amazing time and for me to be the adult that has to care about things that do not matter to him. Life has certainly come full circle. He has perfected his art. I am a work in progress at best.

But then I thought to myself, why can't we let the child in us continue to do what it does best? 

Let us continue to be passionate about things we truly care about no matter how big or small they are. Let us not worry about failure and go to sleep exhausted after giving everything we have to whatever it is that we do.

Let us find pleasure in the little things, let us cry and laugh like we mean it, make new and best friends in a day and share with them all that we have.

Let us be curious about things we know nothing about, and be an entrepreneur with a curb side lemonade stand or while delivering the daily newspaper or while selling imperfectly shaped, but usually much better tasting, home made cookies. 

Let us never give up but take failure in our stride when it does happen. Let us all dare mighty things.

Yes, I find a great amount of pleasure in a project well done. But nothing makes me warm and giddy inside like when Mom, all wide eyed and bewildered, used to ask me, after my hard day's labor in the playing field, "what happened to you?".