Recently I was at a third birthday party. The parents are dear friends of mine. As our friend ground caught up, the kids ran around, laughing and full of energy. There were lots of stories to share, things to be pointed at, and tagging as you are now ‘it.’
It’s so easy to tell when children are excited. Kids run around, then laugh and scream. Sometimes they’ll jump up and down. They are in the moment. They stay in the moment. If they enjoy what it is they are doing – they’ll do it again, and again, and again. ‘Again,’ one of my friends kids shouted, laughing as he pressed his legs against me whilst lying down in the jumping castle and I pushed back. They all certainly made the most of the few hours we were together until it was time for us to go.
Is this the same for adults? No. At times it’s not the default. Most times, perhaps. We need to keep our sense of joy, that child like sense of joy, when we are exploring the world and going about our days. Be curious. Be excited. Be serious only when it’s needed. Be a mixture of both, but mostly of joy.
So what can we do to keep it? 🤔
We can give ourselves permission. Life isn’t serious 100% of the time when we reach adulthood, yet we have a tendency to think it needs to be. Yes, we need to responsible. Yes, we need to plan for various futures. We also need to continue to be fun and goofy and have oodles of fun along the way.
Here’s a couple of ideas I’ve been working on:
- Set a timer for when you need to leave – and then be in the moment and play until you hear the alarm
- Make time to play – schedule it in – go and jump on the jumping castle, run down the hill, join your children
- Pause and look at the airplane you see taking off and wath it climb into the clouds until it disappears
- Laugh at jokes
- High five others when we are stoked about something we saw or news they shared
- Be curious and explore
