Live and Love Like a Little One

Here is a beautiful passage that Antony, a reader in Australia, sent to me. It poetically describes how adults can rekindle their love of life by thinking like a child. This is an eloquent, simple, and compelling example of what I mean by Goal-Free Living.

This is from Muhammad Ali: “Children make you want to start life over,” by Bodhipaksa, a Buddhist practitioner for 25 years and a parent for one year.

I look at my 14-month-old daughter and I see a being who is completely free from hatred. She has no regrets, no baggage. She doesn’t label herself, doesn’t judge herself. She doesn’t think of herself as being successful or a failure, popular or unpopular, good or bad, rich or poor, lucky or unfortunate.

And to her everything seems new and fresh. Today’s 20th reading of “Pat the Bunny” or “Barnyard Dance” is as delightful to her as the first (I wish that were the case for her parents). When she falls down she simply picks herself back up. She doesn’t lie there saying “I’ve tried walking. It doesn’t work. I’m just not a walking kind of person.”

The simplest things are intriguing. She’ll take immense pleasure simply from moving her hands. A leaf picked up on a walk is a world of fascination.

She has, in short, what Suzuki Roshi called “Beginner’s Mind.” And that’s something we all, certainly at times, want, and even crave.

If you found this article useful or interesting, please press the "Like" button and post a Facebook comment below.

Quote of the Day

“Goals are for the future. Values are now. Goals are set. Values are lived. Goals change. Values are rocks you can count on.” From Gung Ho! by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles

If you found this article useful or interesting, please press the "Like" button and post a Facebook comment below.

Innovation Quotes of the Day

Man can only have a certain number of teeth, hairs, and ideas. There comes a time when he necessarily loses his teeth, his hair, and his ideas. – Voltaire

Ideas must work through the brains and arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats. - Howard Aiken

The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it. – P. B. Medawar

If you found this article useful or interesting, please press the "Like" button and post a Facebook comment below.

Pursuing Passion Quote of the Day

“If it is possible to make yourself into a great hacker. The way to do it may be to make the following deal with yourself: you never have to work on boring projects (unless your family will starve otherwise), and in return, you’ll never allow yourself to do a half-assed job (not done properly). All the great hackers I know seem to have made that deal, though perhaps none of them had any choice in the matter.” — Great Hackers by Paul Graham

If you found this article useful or interesting, please press the "Like" button and post a Facebook comment below.

Quote of the Day

Antony from Sydney, Australia has sent me dozens of great quotes. Today, he is providing his own personal quote.

“I just realized that few of the greatest things I’ve achieved in this life were planned years before. On the contrary, the greatest opportunities would certainly never have resulted without the failure of major goals. It is awesome to think that my greatest achievements in the future are unimaginable now and that I’ll be able to decide what to do as I’m doing it (quoting Paul Graham). This idea makes me feel that I’ll be alive, rather than the idea that I have to make lots of decisions now and then just follow the instructions for years into the future.” – Antony

If you found this article useful or interesting, please press the "Like" button and post a Facebook comment below.