True Teacher

Is it with me or is it with most of the people, I kept wondering since last August. It turned out to be that it is with MOST of the people.

We elders, from whom do we learn the most? Is it from other elders? Is it from our peers? Is it from Internet? From whom do we learn the most? Not from the academics point of view, but from behavioral science & from understanding the life perspective?

I have asked this question myself a thousand of times & always found that we learn a lot from our children. They are our true teachers as they are growing & of course as we are growing too…

Children teach us to cry when we feel like crying & laugh when we are happy. So what the big deal about it? Big deal is that we forget to laugh when we feel like laughing & we don’t cry when we feel like crying. There is social pressure as we grow up to “BEHAVE” & not laugh loud in the crowd or not cry in front of others… But kids do that all the time. They smile & cry when they feel like. They don’t have the fear of social pressure or what others think of them. That’s why they are always happy unlike elders. They cry & they will be done with those tears in few minutes & they are back to their momentum in few minutes of cry. They will be able to get back to their momentum within no time as they did just what they felt like doing at the time that they felt like doing.

They never try to please others. They will always be themselves & talk their heart out. When we start learning from them we realize what a tremendous curve it has been.

Kids enjoy small things in life every day, like playing in water or attending a friend’s birthday party or their own birthday for that matter. Why cannot we enjoy the way they do? Why cannot we go to a friend’s birthday party with the same enthusiasm and energy that they have when they have to attend any of their friend’s birthday party?

They teach us to tell the truth always no matter what. A recent incidence in the bus took me by surprise & felt pity for the embarrassment that mom had to go through for not telling the truth. I was commuting home from my work place & was sitting and enjoying the weather for a while. In one of the stops a neatly dressed up lady got into the bus with her beautiful, cute daughter, who were probably attending a function. Their dresses & make up they had put on them told me so. When the conductor approached the lady for checking tickets, she took only 1 ticket to her destined stop. Immediately conductor asked how old is her daughter? Mom said 6 years & then realized that she should have found out the age for which the travelling ticket is not required for kids. By then conductor had already taken the money & given the ticket to her. Mom asked the conductor till what age ticket is not required. He said “6”. Immediately she said this Dec 7^th only she will be 6. As soon as her daughter who was next to her heard this, gave her an extremely wired look & told “ah!! This Dec 7^th, I will be 7”. Her mother felt a little embarrassed & wanted to cover up her own mistake. So she said, no, you will be 6 years. Had she kept quite, may be her daughter would not have embarrassed her any further. But she pulled the words from her daughter’s mouth when she said, I know your age. Keep quite. Her daughter said, Amma, I am 2^nd standard, so I will be 7. Appa has told me that I am going to be 7 & so he is getting me 7 candles this year.!!!! Things cannot get any worse than this.

We teach them to be truthful & honest. But we ourselves will not be. Why don’t we follow what we teach them? I don’t think there is any parent who will teach a kid to lie. If we want our kids to be a role model, why can’t we be one ourselves? What is the fear we have of being a role model? Is it the fear of some consequences? Is it only the fear or will some consequence truly be the way we imagine? I don’t know. But I have seen that we don’t do all the things we tell our kids to do. I am no exception. I am trying to constantly learn from all the kids around me. To be myself, to enjoy my own birthday, to smile when I feel like smiling, to laugh loud when I feel like laughing & truly shed those tears when I feel like crying without worrying about where I am crying or what others would think “about me”. Does it make me look like a person with no control on my emotions? Yes, may be to rest of the world. But not for kids!!!! There is no meaning not being kiddish/childish at times as we grow as there is a kid in all of us.

Thanks to all the little kids around me. I am trying to live my life the way all kids do… I am finding a lot of meaning & happiness in this life.