The Joy of a Child about simple Things

There are proverbs or popular sayings that express the wish to be like children again or that children know how to really be happy. In the past week, while being in Apra I have witnessed several examples of situations in which such proverbs could have come to life! The ability to be so extremely happy about things which seem so small is just beautiful!

When we were visiting Pavan and his family at their home last Sunday, we sat in their garden for dinner and chatting. They live in Mainz and when the weather is nice – as it was last week – the planes about to land in Frankfurt fly pretty much exactly over their property. They mentioned that they unfortunately had the side effect in summertime: the noise! Apra however did not mind this fact at all!

In Vrindavan we are far off anywhere where an airplane might fly, so whenever one actually comes, all kids get excited and run out to look at it and shout in their excitement. More often than not, it is actually a helicopter, but they don’t mind at all! That’s pretty much what Apra did: whenever she saw a plane, she just shouted ‘MA! PA! A PLANE!’

Frankfurt is a very busy airport and Apra does not get tired! Over the course of the three hours or more we were there, she shouted this a whole lot of times!

Isn’t it just beautiful to see this joy over something that you don’t even care about, no, which actually annoys you? This is why people envy children for this ability! Children really live in the moment, in the presence and experience the joys of the moment much more actively than we do, because we are in the future or the past with our thoughts all the time! Kids don’t think that far in any direction of time yet – which means that they can just enjoy the moment and what is happening right now.

On top of it, children of course have not experienced so many things yet! During one day, there are hundreds of new things for small children while we have the feelings that everything is always the same. Even regular items or events which children have seen before can be exciting simply due to the fact that they have developed further and are able to appreciate them on a different level! They can comprehend them better and thus get more excited about them, too!

This doesn’t mean however that we cannot feel this joy! It might be difficult to get just as excited as Apra about the hundredth plane flying over our heads but we can at least marvel at the fact that there are planes! That we can fly thousands of kilometers around the globe to be with each other! That we are able to visit someone on the other side of the planet, travel and journey across continents! That this machine helps us realize a dream of millions of people before aircrafts were invented: we can fly!

I think often it is just a matter of our mindset and a decision to be happy and joyful, just like a child, which can bring us this joy!