- They have a big heart.
- They are so excited about everything.
- They are very friendly.
- They don’t have the mind to pursue happiness.
- They smile and laugh a lot. Sometimes without reason.
I was at the beach last Saturday, hoping to catch some sun and just chill.
As I was looking at sun, sand, water and people, a child caught my attention. He was looking for something in the sand together with his mum. He looked of Malaysian Indian heritage and he was speaking in fluent Mandarin to his mum, who looked of Malaysian Chinese heritage. I was fascinated. The child is like me, I thought, but with better Mandarin.
Suddenly, the child came up to me all excited. With a big smile and sparkly eyes, he showed me the bucket he was carrying and said “I have a crab!!” 😊
Me: *Smiling* 😊 I can’t see the crab. Where is it? 😊
Child: It’s hiding! Under the shell.
He then paused for a moment and took a shell from his bucket.
Child: I’ll give you this shell.
Me: *heart melted* 😊😊😊 Awww, thank you! It is very pretty. 😊
Child got excited and then continued his search for more crabs and shells somewhere else on the beach. I went back to chilling.
Shortly after, unexpectedly, he returned with more shells. And he gave them to me one by one.
He then started talking more. His mum joined us. He said let’s go there (pointing to somewhere closer to the water) and see if there are more crabs. I said ok. And child, mum and me did that for 1 hour.
This child, S, that I met on Saturday, is 7 years old and he had the biggest heart. He openly accepted me. He shared all the shells and crabs he collected and then released all of them back to the sand. He found everything fascinating – dogs, birds, people, crabs, sand and sun. He was so excited to just be there at the beach. He didn’t complain, had no expectations and was just happily digging around the sand. And he smiled A LOT. Like the whole time.
I’m very grateful to have met him. He made my day. 😊
Experiences like above became more frequent after I’ve started meditation. In fact, I don’t actually remember having these types of encounters before my meditation years.
Now, friends’ children would warm up to me easily. Children I meet in the apartment lift would happily wave and say hi. Children I meet at the supermarket also say hi to me without their parents telling them to do so.
I have no children of my own, so I’m not exactly oozing motherly material. Yet all the children that I’ve met have such big hearts that they open up so easily and happily and can accept people so quickly. Also, they’re excited about everything – and are not jaded about life. S, the child I met on Saturday, wore a T-shirt that said “Start a new adventure everyday”.
So now the question, how to be more like them? For me, the answer is to continue meditating, self-reflecting and taking action.
Through self-reflection and meditation, I could find the blockages within me one by one – e.g. I had too many expectations. I had high stress levels. I was mainly negative about things. I didn’t know how to give.
Then, after accepting I had all these things within, I took action and discarded these blockages one by one via meditation. With time, the blockages went away and space eventually opened up in my heart to accept people more. With a bigger heart like children, people easily feel more comfortable and that made work and personal relationships a lot more pleasant. Life itself – became more pleasant. It’s truly amazing. Thank you children ❤️ and thanks to the meditation! I’m grateful 😊
Thank you! 💛😊
