DAY
217
“The great man is he who does not lose his child’s-heart.”
— Mencius
There! Mencius said it! You have permission to never grow up.
That may not be entirely true, but it is very important as you travel on the road to success that you keep a child’s heart.
What does that mean? Your assignment today is to write about what you think it means to have a child’s heart. What are some of the traits children possess that would be helpful for you to incorporate into your life today? Why is it so important not to lose your child’s heart?
Notice that this quote does not say it’s nice to have a child’s heart. It says the great man is he who does not lose his child’s heart. You are working through this book because you want to be a great person. You want to live a successful life on a number of levels. Does it seem odd to you that a great person should be childlike?
You do not have to come along willingly here. If you don’t see why you would want to recapture a child’s heart, then write about that. Get your feelings out on paper. Why would you rather maintain your adult status and not go back to childish ways? Is this thought process a little unsettling for you?
On the other hand, you may be excited to have the chance to reach back to your childhood. Maybe you miss that childlike sense of wonder that you had when you were innocent and had not yet become jaded by the ways of the world. There is an idealistic side to having a child’s heart. Is that something you can embrace?
DAY
218
“I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.”
— Bob Seger
On Day 210 you were asked to start brainstorming ways in which you could combine fantasy and reason to achieve success. How is that going? Are you coming up with some great ideas? What are you doing to incorporate those ideas into your life? Here’s the bad news: the assignment you started on day 210 is going to last a bit longer than a week. It should continue throughout your lifetime. Never stop finding ways to unite these powerful devices. They will guide you on the road to success— and maybe that’s good news!
Now for today’s lesson. Bob Seger incorporated the quote above into his song “Against the Wind,” and it exemplifies the transition from innocence to experience. The longer you hang around in this world, the more life experiences you accumulate. At some point you will most likely wish you didn’t know now what you didn’t know when you were a child full of optimism and wonder.
How do you combat the sadness, regret, and cynical feelings that come with adult knowledge of the world? What can you do to maintain a bit of your childhood sense of wonder at the beauty that surrounds you? It’s hard not to become jaded, especially if life has dealt you some serious blows. The trick is to continually look for the good. There is something redeemable in every situation you face. You can choose to concentrate on the negative, or you can instead decide to pay attention to the positive aspects of life. You don’t have to pretend you don’t know now what you didn’t know then. Instead, you might try to use your knowledge to grow and extend your sense of wonder into a larger arena.
DAY
219
“The reluctance to put away childish things may be a requirement of genius.”
— Rebecca Pepper Sinkler
Did you ever think that being immature would be a requirement of success? Isn’t that great news? If you were a late bloomer in life, one of the last to put away your toys and transition to more grown-up activities, your reluctance to move on may be a sign of genius.
There are numerous reasons that it’s not a good idea to put away all of your childish things. Those toys and games you took part in as a child allowed you to make leaps and bounds in development. They helped you practice a sense of wonder and expand your mind. They also instilled an idea that anything was possible.
It still is. If you don’t believe that, you have set up too many adult-size barriers in your life, and it’s time to remove them and return to your childish ways. Your assignment today is to bring back childish things. Return to games that you enjoyed as a youngster. Read a book that transports you into a fantasy world; spend some time coloring or drawing; go to see a movie that has very little basis in reality; eat an ice cream sundae and savor every spoonful; roll down a grassy hill; or make angels in the snow.
Returning to childish things helps you to not take yourself too seriously. It removes a lot of the judgment that adults like to attach to everything we do. When you are just playing, you don’t care about the results. You are in a constant state of experimentation and wonder. Let yourself go back there. It will open your mind and give the judge who resides in your head the day off. The best way to release your genius is to remove anything standing in its way.
DAY
220
“Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air—explode softly—and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth—boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn’t go cheap, either—not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.”
— Robert Fulghum
Read the passage above several times. Imagine the world Robert Fulghum created when he suggested that the next secret weapon be a Crayola bomb. Does that sound completely ridiculous to you? Did you turn off this image the minute you were halfway through the paragraph because it was silly and fanciful? Did you question why it was included in a book about achieving success?
Table your misgivings for a moment and go with this exercise anyway. Find a quiet corner sometime today and give yourself permission to experience this world where we solve crises with Crayolas. Draw your own picture of how the earth would look after a beauty bomb is released. Write about how your personal life would change if something like this actually happened.
You don’t have to be a slave to your cynicism. Absolutely anything can happen. You make choices to go with enlightenment or obscurity every single day. It’s not fair to blame anyone else for the state of world affairs, because you are a member of this team. You choose how active you will be in your society. Are you going to cover the world with imagination and a sense of wonder, or are you going to close doors on the future?