Life is Short and Childhood is Even Shorter

The other day, I was asked how we decided to allow Naeem to travel nearly 6,000 miles from home, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, not having finished high school and not knowing anyone in Porto Feliz, Brasil.  I answered the question in the best way I knew how by beginning my answer with a couple of questions followed by a brief analogy.  The conversation went something like the following:

Do you ever feel so overwhelmed by your job (lately known as Just Obstructing Bankruptcy) that you don’t know if you are coming or going?  Does that feeling of being overwhelmed seem to linger with you 24/7?  Do you often feel like whatever you do from 8 to 5 (if you’re lucky to only be required to work 8 hours) is what you do to merely pay the bills?  Are you feeling stuck working somewhere that allows you to pay for all the stuff (profanity avoided) that you don’t need, stuff (profanity avoided) that you now realize that you didn’t need to begin with and stuff (profanity avoided) that you no longer want?  Is your life similar to an out of body experience where you watch yourself grow increasingly physically unhealthy, mentally unsatisfied and emotionally disconnected from the people and things that really matter?  Join the club.

Membership Has It’s Limits

Oh this is not a club that you would have willingly joined if you had known better.  Yet, without intending to join, you joined the club where millions of children sign the deviously ingenious “I can’t wait to grow up contract”.  This contract is consummated the first time an adult asks you to do something that you don’t want to do.  The moment you speak those six dreadful words in response to an adult’s request “I can’t wait to grow up” you have unintentionally sealed your fate.  You are immediately without realizing placed on a conveyor belt that is headed in only one unfortunate direction – adulthood.

The expediency of becoming an adult is one of the all-time great deceptions in the history of mankind ranking right up there with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Bernie Madoff as an honest businessman.  You probably won’t choose to do this but I’m sure if you would reflect honestly, you would admit that being an adult is one of if not the most overrated experiences in all the world.  We rush to be considered grown no later than age 18 to 21 – only to spend the bulk of our lives until age 80 to 100 working. No more precisely we spend the bulk of our lives fossilizing and forgetting in the process what it really means to be alive.

What’s Does It Mean To Be Alive?

Think you know what it means to be alive.  Trust me you have probably forgotten.  However, you only need to spend a few moments in the presence of a happy child to know what is truly meant by living. Nothing matters but giving and receiving the love and attention from those around them.  Nothing matters but having food which is healthy and nutritious like strain carrots and peas.  They don’t care about the shiny new luxury car, the square footage of the home, the designer labels or the five star hotels and restaurants.  They simply want to be alive and be loved in that very moment.

As we get older, we start to remember what living is really about but unfortunately this realization comes at a stage where many of us have done so much damage to ourselves and our relationships that we don’t even get a chance to live vicariously through a child.  If you are one of those doting grandparents you know exactly what I am referencing.

However, if you are not yet a grandparent and you want to know what I am talking about find someone whom you know that is a grandparent and watch them with their grandchild.  You will see in them the recognition and longing to be a child once again.  You will see an adult who long stopped appreciating the wonder that is childhood making childlike noises, making goofy faces, dancing to strange nonsensical beats and singing otherwise awful songs that are being sung by peculiar creatures in the seemingly most ridiculous costumes.

You will witness those who long stopped imagining the possibility of the unbelievable willingly and eagerly telling stories that are make believe, acting in theatrical performances on the grand stage which is behind the grand child’s bedroom curtain, taking walks through parks where they take time to actually smell the roses and getting on the floor to play even getting dirty without regard to their designer clothing.  This is living vicariously through a child.

Protect Your Inner Child

Unfortunately, the bulk of us do not recognize the necessity of continuing to nurture and keeping alive our childlike exuberance and hope until it is much too late.  We cease much too early being excited about each and every moment and believing that anything is possible such as when we as children allowed ourselves to believe that one severely obese man; who is undoubtedly diabetic and suffering from hypertension and high blood pressure; was able to travel in a sleigh that is being pulled by flying reindeer (one reindeer who had a shiny red nose) all over the entire earth in one night; who slides through our chimney (even when our home doesn’t have a chimney); eats the cookies laid out for him at each and every home (despite the fact that some of the cookies are just plain nasty) without ever getting full, having an upset stomach or indigestion; and who decides how many if any toys we shall receive because he secretly knows if we have been naughty or nice.

Instead of maintaining this type of perspective and imagination where we believe that anything is possible, we choose instead to stay on the illusory conveyor belt moving forward in lock step with all the other Zombies.  By Zombie, I’m referring to all of us who simply now pursue an outdated, dysfunctional and irrelevant dream (the American Dream) made of exclusively chasing material possessions that rust, depreciate and grow undesirable to us much too soon.

This is the reason that Naeem is taking a sabbatical from high school to go chase his dream – believing impossible is nothing.  Knowing what I know, he has a lot of years to be a Zombie.  So I’m trying to keep him off the conveyor belt to Zombie Land for as long as possible.  I want him to continue to experience and appreciate life like a child for as long as possible.  Life is short and childhood is even shorter.