One Moment At A Time

“Trust is like that feeling child has, when you throw him in air and catch again, he enjoys it.” Really? Do you think it is trust? Well, if you are of a logical kind of a person who believes only in facts then try this experiment- Get hold of a child(beg, borrow, DON’T steal), throw him up in the air, and forget to catch him (Note: This experiment is NOT to be tried but just imagined). So suppose a mother/ father hurt their child while playing, the child’s ‘trust’ is broken, and now what? The child won’t ‘trust’ its parents again for having hurt him? Will the child shun its parents forever for breaking its trust? Will the child now develop ‘distrust’ towards them? The bigger question is does child even know what ‘trust’ or ‘distrust’ means? It’s US who are trying to make meaning of everything around us. Children don’t find it necessary to find meaning in what they do. They in every sense ‘follow their hearts’. Filling sand in their pockets, collecting rubbish, throwing things, jumping and clapping randomly, saying things in a language we can never decipher and there are a million other cute things you might have observed. None of these things might make any sense to us, but the kids find their own joy in it which is beyond our understanding. When the kid is thrown in air, he/she is not even thinking of what will happen next. It just enjoys that moment. It does not think of the future or the consequences. Unlike us it’s carefree. I think more than the action it’s the consequences that follow which we fear. But children just live in the moment and thus are fearless. No overthinking. No reflecting. No judging. No assuming. All is about feeling and acting upon those feelings.

 Feelings are to be felt. And thoughts to be thought. But we just do the vice-versa. We feel about our thoughts and think a way too much about our feelings. A child thinks so independently, free from presumptions, assumptions. A child’s thoughts are original, formed by their own experiences rather than books, scholars or teachers. Children are action-oriented, not thought-oriented. They do things for the joy of doing it. Judging and labelling it ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ is the work of the ‘experienced’ adults.

A child is always open to new experiences and that’s where the enthusiasm and the energy come from. Newness is the motivation. Once the experience is old you are no more motivated to go on with it. When we are curious, we learn more. Well, then, one of the ways we can keep ourselves enthusiastic in life is by being curious and open to freshness in life. Don’t think that you can’t be a child again. Every time you do something new, do it without expectations. Do it for the experience. For the joy of ‘being’. And you’ll feel child-like.

Sip your juice drop by drop, don’t gulp it in. Indulge wholly in the action of drinking. Live the moment. Don’t think of anything else but the juice, the fruit which is crushed, the feeling it leaves on your tongue, imagine it travelling through the food pipe and into your stomach. Relish it. And trust me, you’ll cherish it.