![]() ![]() An antidote of sharing and nonviolence and naps.īe aware of wonder. A society becoming almost totally devoid of social, emotional or physical contact. ![]() But especially an antidote for our hyper-individualistic way of life. Both of their lives had equal value.Ĭhild-like wonder is an antidote. Yet people pour out their hearts over Kobe Bryant as if they’ve lost a lifelong friend. A man who died the same day as Kobe Bryant. We might, in fact, honor the life and death of a homeless man in Santa Monica. Sir Thomas Carlyle once wrote, “Wonder is the basis of worship.”ĭon’t you think we’d approach the world differently if we saw every world problem through the universal filter of child-like wonder and innocence? Me too. And we cherished love and joy and friendship like the rare commodities they truly are. ![]() Imagine what the country might accomplish if we feared life & death and pain & sorrow like a child. It’s equivalent to flying from JFK to Tel Aviv, Israel and talking out loud, non-stop, for the entire flight.Īs Fulghum expresses in the book, “The examined life is no picnic.” Said another way, just one hour of thinking hard is the mental equivalent of talking out loud for 10 hours straight. So if our minds are working really hard on something, that little internal voice thinks at 1,250 words a minute or 75,000 words an hour. That little voice speaks to us 10 times faster. In an hour we might speak 7,500 words and be exhausted.īut that little internal voice in our heads? That little voice never gets tired. ![]() The average person speaks at a rate of 125 words per minute. “Part of the problem is that little internal voice. That little internal voice that wants to talk about everything with us. It’s our human interpretation and our desire to complicate things that causes trouble. That might be my my last meal on Death Row. Isn’t it true that life is still pretty simple at its core? That cookies and milk can solve a lot of problems? Personally I like a warm Snickerdoodle and some cold 2%. Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Or whether we are all gonna drown in exactly 12.3 years. Or drink from a single-use, plastic straw. Or argue about whether we could eat Rosebud for dinner. Perhaps we wouldn't have to contemplate a garbage dump the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean. When our emotions were lifted beyond the heavens by the smell of a brand-new box of Crayola 64’s with the built in sharpener.Ĭan you imagine if we had heeded just some of the advice? Like the advice to clean up our own messes. Long before the world begins to temper our expectations. I long for that unadulterated wonder at the world around us. How I long for that unbridled excitement. And we couldn’t wait to come back tomorrow. To listen to stories with child-like curiosity.īack when we were full of optimism and an unwavering sense of adventure. To sing and dance like nobody's watching. (Ignore the part where she goes a knuckle-deep in her nose). We forget what it felt like to see the world afresh. Just watch this 30 second video a kid talking about imagination. Then we go home to bury our face in our phone as we half-watch another episode of The Voice for the third night in a row. As if we’ve earned the right not to put things back where we found them. As if the speed of life negates the need to share and say your sorry when you mess up. It seems as if the more our world speeds up, the less we remember these rules. Everybody can sing and dance.)īut somewhere along the way we’ve lost these rules. Before you questioned if you could sing or dance. Before you realized that a “smock” was really just your dad’s old dress shirt. Before you realized that nobody wants the white crayon or the white jelly beans. Rules like “Play fair” and “Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.” Basic things that we all learned before we could even write our own name with a broken Magenta crayon. But who knew that we would need these rules even more today. Rules that were relevant to adults (and kindergarteners) in 1986. Rules of living decently with other human beings. You see this book is really about a set of rules. The kind that make us slow down, and savor life for a minute. Old school stuff, for sure. The kind that make us think about everyday happenings. The kind of stories that make us feel good. I decided to re-read this book to see if the yellowing pages had the same impact on me after some 30-plus years stuffed in a box. ![]()
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