Live Out Your Imagination...

Over the past few years I’ve noticed something, I’ve noticed how happy kids are. They are just so happy and full of life all the time. So I started asking myself why? Why are they so happy? How do they exude so much joy? What is causing this gap between how happy they are and how unhappy we as adults can be sometimes.

I used to feel that it was simply because we are adults and we have responsibilities and stress and that’s just how life is. And kids don’t have the stresses that we have so of course they’re happy. And that’s where I would leave the question, and I feel that’s where most of us would leave it. But my gut just tells me there’s more to it. Because, kids have stresses too. They have the stress of maintaining friendships at school and dealing with the friend that all of a sudden says “I don’t want to be your friend anymore”. That seems trivial to us but can be a major deal for them. They have the stresses of school, homework and tests, which I equate to projects and deadlines for us, and this can be a lot for them. Then there’s peer pressure, feeling the need to dress a certain way, participating in certain activities or NOT participating in certain other activities due to their fear of judgement from their peers. It’s a lot for kids, of all ages, but somehow they just keep going and are so full of life. So how the heck do they do it?

It clicked when I saw a clip of Ed Mylett in an interview. He essentially said that they’re so happy because they live out through their imagination and dreams. He’s totally right!! They imagine and dream all day every day. And they pursue a lot of those imaginations and dreams, if they’re imagining being in a castle they don’t need an actual castle, some old boxes and blankets will do and 30 minutes later they’ve built their castle in the living room. They’re living out what they dreamed and imagined.

We all had dreams when we were little and some of those dreams may not be worth chasing at your age. For example, if your dream was to be the quarterback for your favorite team and you’re in your 40’s now, that may not be very feasible and may not be worth pursuing. But, there are still other dreams that you’ve had in your life that this would be the perfect time to start pursuing.

I needed more imagination and dreaming in my life, so I started letting go of what I felt “societies” expectations were for me. Instead, I focused on what I wanted for myself. I started to imagine again, I started to dream again. I started to chase what I wanted in life instead of what society told me I should be chasing. This has brought me a lot of joy and I feel “lighter” now, if that even makes sense.

Kids really do have a lot of answers to our questions, they just don’t know it. So I’m going to do everything I can to encourage my boys to build their castle and I’ll do this by making sure they see me build mine.

Go build your castle, the boxes are in the garage, blankets are in the closet and the blue print is in your dreams.