Forget Being a Grown Up

What’s the aim of life? Is it to be happy? To make things better? To protect myself and my loved ones? To be the best at something?

There’s so much to do, so many people to look after and be concerned about, so many things to get, it’s hard to know each day where to begin. When I had a day job, it was easier. I would get up, wash up, make coffee, and go to work. There were no if’s, and’s, or but’s about it. Well, not most days, at least. Life was simple. There was one place I had to be every day, and that was the company where I was employed.

Now, life is open-ended. I’ve quit my day job and I’ve been traveling. There’s no daily office to report to, no boss’s office to visit, no meetings to make. I have an open schedule, an open book. My agenda is to explore, discover, learn, and rest. My goal is to figure out how to bring wellness to as many people as I can, starting with the few who want to try.

The word wellness is so broad, so general, I know, I hate it. But I also love it, because there’s no one answer for everyone. Especially for me, the answers are coming from so many different fields of knowledge and practice I can hardly keep track. I thought I was looking for joint pain relief as I continued strength training. This led to a reevaluation of my diet. I then discovered the critical importance of the mind in resolving pain. As I kept going, I realized that mind cultivation not only helped to resolve physical pain, but also brought me above the basic struggle for survival and back into the realm of creativity.

Essentially, I ended up reconnecting with my childhood. Parts of my mind that I had forgotten, neglected, rejected, the childish elements of myself, opened up. I embraced my curiosity, my love of fun and mischief, and my unapologetic creativity. Maybe this is what wellness is. To be what we were as children, better able to take care of ourselves as adults, but always nurturing the core of our being that began in infancy.

In one way, I’m older than I ever was. In another way, I’m as young as I ever was. Maybe I’m getting delirious with age. Maybe not. But I know that if I keep following this path that I’ve come upon, if I hold the light in my sights, I’m going to get younger and younger, until I can say I fully rediscovered my child self. And I think this is the beginning.

As a factory-oriented world, we’ve come to believe that childhood should be enjoyed and then put away in a little box deep, deep inside our hearts. That we need to grow up into working adults, produce the goods that are to be sold in the markets, and collect money to be able to eat, sleep, breed, and perpetuate the workforce. This has been the model for the past few centuries. It’s deeply ingrained in our DNA.

I think that humankind has gone through this hurdle of the industrial age, and the modern and postmodern ages, as possibly a step up for our race. I’m not sure, as my perspective is so small. But it’s certainly brought us into a new age. Things are different. The percentage of people who are living well may not be any higher than it was before conquering one another became a trend, but we are certainly beyond a dip in the graph.

Take a look at these ten world stats highlighted by Peter Diamandis. Poverty is at an all time low and decreasing. Life is lengthening. Violence is decreasing. Now is the time to think about what is truly best for us as people. And part of that is to discard the notion that childhood is separate from adulthood. We don’t have to be so serious.

We can play. We can prank. We can question. We can giggle. We can be vulnerable, innocent, ignorant, simple, and mysterious. We can be illogical. In a physical sense, we can be flexible, agile, nimble, we can jump, run, roll, swing, climb. We don’t have to wear suits and sit still in chairs in office buildings, and act polite.

Of course, we have rules. We have government. We have responsibilities. So do kids. The difference is, a kid can go to school, be in class, and then jump outside and run around in the sun right after. He knows who he is. He can express that. A grown up doesn’t. He takes his work self with him, back at home, and continues to act repressed. Why?

There’s a way to be all of ourselves. Not just the adulthood, but also the childishness. We’ve got to try to find this in ourselves, and when we do, whether intentionally or accidentally, we must embrace it and let it thrive. And like most things, the more you feed it, the more it grows.

Be the child you were born to be.

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily