Expressed As Only Children Can
You gotta love children. You gotta love them for their honesty, their inability to keep a secret and their obliviousness to political correctness. As a result of these pure character traits they sometimes come up with very poignant comments and make the listening adults most uncomfortable.
This particular entry got its inspiration from an article I read on Yahoo News last week. Michelle Obama was visiting an elementary school. One of the children asked the First Lady why her husband was taking away people who did not have the correct papers (ie. immigration papers). Mrs. Obama responded by saying that it was important that people had the correct papers. The little girl then went on to state that her mum did not have the correct papers.
Oops!
Clearly this little girl's mother would never have posed this question to the First Lady of the country that requires the papers being discussed. There are many adults who express themselves on the issue but few who would do it in such a personal and direct fashion. The result is that the emotion of the situation, the real human side of the situation, is watered down.
Children will, if not guided by an adult, speak from the heart and use their emotions. We adults still all know the feelings, the raw emotions, of childhood. We regularly feel them. We just do not express them. There is no need to remember as they still run through our veins. Joy, anger, sadness and love all spur us to want to express ourselves - regularly. But we generally hold back, don't we? If we say this, they'll think that and we don't want to deal with the result. So we apply logic and hold back.
However, if we did not hold back and, rather, acted like our children sometimes do we might resolve issues quickly. The emotion that spurs the comment is real and needs to be expressed. By addressing the issue immediately, rather than by waiting, the tormenting brew of thoughts in our brains would end and maybe, just maybe, the new set of emotions that arise from this brew - ones that are often more damaging and more extreme than the original ones - would not arise. The problem would already be solved. The question quickly answered. Not necessarily to our satisfaction but at least answered so that we could move on.
Rather we adults sit, think, remain silent and brew. Problems don't get resolved and we bicker about why that is. Maybe we should just have the confidence that children have and blurt out our thoughts and live with the consequences. Be true to ourselves rather than to some image of what we think society finds acceptable.
So, next time you feel an emotion, express it.
Let me know what you think about what you have just read. Please and thanks!
This particular entry got its inspiration from an article I read on Yahoo News last week. Michelle Obama was visiting an elementary school. One of the children asked the First Lady why her husband was taking away people who did not have the correct papers (ie. immigration papers). Mrs. Obama responded by saying that it was important that people had the correct papers. The little girl then went on to state that her mum did not have the correct papers.
Oops!
Clearly this little girl's mother would never have posed this question to the First Lady of the country that requires the papers being discussed. There are many adults who express themselves on the issue but few who would do it in such a personal and direct fashion. The result is that the emotion of the situation, the real human side of the situation, is watered down.
Children will, if not guided by an adult, speak from the heart and use their emotions. We adults still all know the feelings, the raw emotions, of childhood. We regularly feel them. We just do not express them. There is no need to remember as they still run through our veins. Joy, anger, sadness and love all spur us to want to express ourselves - regularly. But we generally hold back, don't we? If we say this, they'll think that and we don't want to deal with the result. So we apply logic and hold back.
However, if we did not hold back and, rather, acted like our children sometimes do we might resolve issues quickly. The emotion that spurs the comment is real and needs to be expressed. By addressing the issue immediately, rather than by waiting, the tormenting brew of thoughts in our brains would end and maybe, just maybe, the new set of emotions that arise from this brew - ones that are often more damaging and more extreme than the original ones - would not arise. The problem would already be solved. The question quickly answered. Not necessarily to our satisfaction but at least answered so that we could move on.
Rather we adults sit, think, remain silent and brew. Problems don't get resolved and we bicker about why that is. Maybe we should just have the confidence that children have and blurt out our thoughts and live with the consequences. Be true to ourselves rather than to some image of what we think society finds acceptable.
So, next time you feel an emotion, express it.
Let me know what you think about what you have just read. Please and thanks!
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