Who Will Cry When You Die\?: Life Lessons From The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari pdfdrive com

13.
Model a Child
A while ago, I took my four-year-old son Colby to an Italian restaurant for
lunch. It was a beautiful autumn day and, as usual, my young son was full of
energy and joy. We both ordered pasta for our main course and then started to
enjoy the freshly baked bread our waiter had brought. Little did I know that
Colby was about to teach his father yet another lesson in the art of living.
Rather than eating the bread whole as most adults do, Colby took a
different, far more creative approach. He began to scoop out the warm, soft part
of the bread and left the crust intact. In other words, he had the wisdom to focus
on the best part of the bread and leave the rest. Someone once said to me at a
seminar, “Children come to us more highly evolved than adults to teach us the
lessons we need to learn.” And on that fine day, my little boy reminded me that
as so-called grown-ups, we spend too much time focusing on the “crust of life”
rather than on all the good things that flow in and out of our days. We focus on
our challenges at work, the pile of bills we have to pay and the lack of time to do
all those things we need to do. But our thoughts do form our world and what we
think about does grow in our lives. What we focus on will determine our destiny
and so we must start focusing on the good stuff.
In the weeks ahead, make the time to connect to your more playful side, the
child within you. Take the time to study the positive qualities of children and
model their ability to stay energized, imaginative and completely in the moment
no matter what might be going on around them. And as you do, remember the
powerful words of Leo Rosten, who observed:
You can understand and relate to most people better if you look at them—
no matter how impressive they may be—as if they are children. For most of
us never really grow up or mature all that much—we simply grow taller.
Oh, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable
disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are,
whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy
tales.

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