"Children are fascinated by the ordinary
and can spend timeless moments
watching sunlight play with dust.
Their restlessness they learn from you.
It is you who are thinking of there
when you are here.
It is you who thinks of then
instead of now.
Stop.
Let your children become the teachers,
and you become the student.
Your children may frequently change the focus
of their attention.
But this is not restlessness.
It is curiosity.
When they are doing something
they are doing only that
until they move on to the next thing.
Watch them.
Let them set the pace.
See what you can learn."
When I was a kid, I couldn't wait to grow up. My sister was the opposite; she wanted to stay a kid, always. Now, we tend to be opposites again, where I've said to her before, "I hate being an adult," to which she responded, "I actually prefer it." At the point in my life of this conversation, I was very much alone, and convinced I would stay that way forever; my sister, on the other hand, had found her partner and married young, enjoying the support for her career and social circle that came with that (or so it seemed to me then.)
At this point in my life, when I, too, am happily married and my sister and I seem to have much more in common, I find it rather funny as well as a small mercy that I am the one of us who has had a child. Raising my daughter is showing me actively what I had long suspected--that "adulthood" is a myth, and growing up takes (literally) forever. Only the learning is real.
and can spend timeless moments
watching sunlight play with dust.
Their restlessness they learn from you.
It is you who are thinking of there
when you are here.
It is you who thinks of then
instead of now.
Stop.
Let your children become the teachers,
and you become the student.
Your children may frequently change the focus
of their attention.
But this is not restlessness.
It is curiosity.
When they are doing something
they are doing only that
until they move on to the next thing.
Watch them.
Let them set the pace.
See what you can learn."
When I was a kid, I couldn't wait to grow up. My sister was the opposite; she wanted to stay a kid, always. Now, we tend to be opposites again, where I've said to her before, "I hate being an adult," to which she responded, "I actually prefer it." At the point in my life of this conversation, I was very much alone, and convinced I would stay that way forever; my sister, on the other hand, had found her partner and married young, enjoying the support for her career and social circle that came with that (or so it seemed to me then.)
At this point in my life, when I, too, am happily married and my sister and I seem to have much more in common, I find it rather funny as well as a small mercy that I am the one of us who has had a child. Raising my daughter is showing me actively what I had long suspected--that "adulthood" is a myth, and growing up takes (literally) forever. Only the learning is real.
Curiosity is powerful because it can and does change focus of attention.
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