My sister planned an AWESOME birthday party for my niece Kelsie at Zanook Aqua Park and I didn’t realize that it actually landed on Thai Children’s Day…
Seeing my 4 year old niece (she just turned 4) diving off the floats and happily sliding down a slide that was at least 10-20 meters high got me thinking and made me realize how much “growing up” has changed me.
I used to climb trees, dive off rocks and think that I could almost anything. I was, and still am, a fairly little girl, but I can remember wanting to compete with the big boys all the time and what I wanted to be (a lawyer, a doctor, an astronaut) changed weekly. I really thought I could do ANYTHING…
What changed? I grew up and realized I couldn’t do something things. It happens to all of us, we capitalize on things that we are good at and we STOP doing the things that we aren’t good at. And slowly but surely we get more “careful” and we totally stop trying to do things that we aren’t SURE we are good at and we start unknowingly putting ourselves into a box.
My husband and I have chosen an unconventional life (selling our fitness business and driving around the world on a motorbike is fairly unconventional at least to most folks standards) and I realized that to succeed in going against the “flow” I cannot be the traditional sort of “grown up.”
I realized that I want/need that childish bravado that I used to have…
I want to stop being a grown up and be more my like my niece…
And that also got me thinking that for children to grow up brave, confident and fearless we have to make the world a safe place for them.
I think my sister Natalie and her hubby, Sam, have done an exemplary job so far…
And in honor of all the children and “children at heart” everywhere I’d like to share this music video again…
It’s so beautiful…watch it…and try not to SMILE 😀