What I am about to write could seem a tad philosophical but believe you me, you may relate to it.
Here is what drove me to write this article. Just the other day, I was roaming about the street when I spotted the proceedings of a school’s annual function. I stayed there for a while and watched the event. Several little kids performed in that two-hour ceremony. I was spellbound as I watched the kids dancing the signature steps of ‘Chinta ta chita chita’ and many other songs. Sentimental as I was, I began recollecting many of my childhood memories and found myself lost in those early years of my life.
All of us must have been through this common situation: if one does not want people over at home, they ask their little child to convey to the guest, “Tell him, I am not at home”. The child then proceeds to tell that person, “Papa says, he is not at home.” Children are really innocent, ain’t they? They do not comprehend the trickery you are trying to do here.
So then what happens after we grow up? Why does our innocence disappear when we grow tall? Why can’t we remain as faithful and loyal as we used to be as kids? So many truisms of our childhood seem like falsehoods after we turn into adults and we start living artificial lives. We try to project what we are not. I remember what Chand sir, a professor from my college, once said, “Fake it until you make it.” However he used the word ‘fake’ in a very positive and healthy way, to help stimulate ourselves to rise up in life rather than put up a phony show. But in the endeavor be someone great, we tend to lose our inherent loving, trusting, innocent, peaceful and truthfully childlike nature.
Many of us are going through this or a similar problem, of feeling lost in the crowds or trying to forge a socially acceptable and suitable image.
Looking at those kids, I realized that one can learn to practice all those virtues and imbibe the inherent nature from children. Truthfulness of one’s mind, speech and body leads to honesty. What is in the mind should be so good and virtuous that we don’t feel ashamed saying it or hesitate doing it.