Wonderful childhood

As kids, we're always in a hurry to grow up. We want to outgrow the dictatorial regime that is our parents and get the freedom to do whatever we want, do whatever we want (and probably eat whatever we want :D). We're carefree, have nothing to think about, and tend to generally have fun. Ok, this is getting a little movie-like perfect, but that's an opinion of a grown up. One of the most, if not the most wonderful parts of childhood, in hindsight, is the freedom from making decisions. Everything is decided for us, be it which school, what to wear (to a certain extent) etc. etc. At that time, we little realise what a perk this is. Resolving a quarrel is so easy! a parent just has to intervene, and we're done, their word is the law.

These last 2 lines are probably the most important. As you come to the nervous teens and adolescence, you realise how much decisions can hurt, and haunt. Your decisions can be small and insignificant, or ones that shape your life. Don't know about you, but I'm cursed to wonder about what ifs, about each an every decision I make. I'm probably built that way, and my upbringing and having to sit cooped up indoors for long times (I was sick a lot as a kid, asthma), makes me wonder about each and every decision I make, and how that affects me, and more so, others. I always remember my carefree childhood, when the most difficult decision to make was probably which ice-cream flavour to take. Talking about the best time, the worst time is probably adolescence. I have had the opportunity of going to one of the best universities in India, but as I near the end of the degree, I still wonder whether how I spent my 5 years here was right. Whether doing something differently would have made things different, whether the path I've picked is the right one. I believe, decisions taken during this period will stay with one for all life, be it as cherished memories, or nightmares that haunt. This is what makes one realise the true value of the innocence and carefree times that were our childhood. Which is why I hate reports of child prodigies, a child should live their childhood with as little burden as possible. Let them go outside and experience the world, don't push them to work 3 hours a day to master some instrument or chess. What you do as a child makes or breaks you as a person. Most of us focus on working harder and harder, making our minds toil to the ends of their limits, trying to push a little further. Don't trust me? try asking some undergrad from a top institute to sit down and do nothing, just relax and take in the atmosphere, they won't be able to. Why? because your mind aggressively trims powers in the early years which it considers irrelevant, to make space for what, we and it, consider important. And running in the rat race makes you exactly that, a rat, running mindlessly in its wheel, unware that it can stop. Still wondering why many brilliant minds burn out? or sportstars retire in their prime because nothing drives them? See if Phelps or Hingis ring bells. When you work hard, so hard, something inside you dies, that child. That child inside you lets you laugh, to enjoy, to love, and look wonderously at every new day.

Remember my next point? that wonderous resolution of quarrels? well, as you grow up, you become more and more sure of yourself. Gaining knowledge breeds confidence, and whether we like it or not, confidence breeds arrogence. Just as courage is not lack of fear but the ability to overcome it, humility is not the lack of arrogance, but the ability to overcome it. As we become more and more sure of ourselves, we disregard authority, of everyone around us. As we become powerful, even more so. Why do you think that global problems are so hard to resolve? there no one to scold the 2 idiots and make them say sorry. Plus, the slight problem that things that people do as adults tend to become hard to tide over by a simple sorry. Maybe they are, but we attach more to them than as kids. Maybe resolving things this way would be easier, but we'll probably never find out.

So, the next time you try to look at that little kid and think you're better, think again. They have a lot more things you can never have, and can be someone you never will.