Turning 30 - Keep the child in you alive.
NEOTENY is a trait in humans that causes us to retain juvenile characteristics, enhancing our curiosity and capacity to learn. This "juvenilization" leads to a prolonged childhood, allowing us to absorb more from the environment, including cultural knowledge. Furthermore, our brains are designed for synergistic processing, combining different information types to enable complex cognitive functions like learning and social cognition.
As a 30-year-old, one of the most important questions I asked myself daily was "What did I learn today?" Learning doesn't have to be academic, it doesn't have to have a measure, or even always have a monetary expectation after. Learning to me is to feel alive, to feel like myself. And the best teachers in the world are kids. I hate that the term "childish" has a negative meaning attached to it. When in reality, in my experience, free people are childish, those who allow themselves to feel deeply, to experience life, and to express as is.
Be Curious but HOW?
We hear it often that being curious is the key to learning. Someone once asked me how to be curious. It is not a silly question, sometimes, as we adults, we forget how some things happen. Let me break down how I do it.
- By asking relevant questions to oneself and others.
- By listening to understand, not to respond.
- By being in nature and observing every movement, every sound.
- By playing with children and not babysitting them, but actually being as involved as they are.
- By being genuine.
- By not calling oneself or others silly for asking something.
- By listening to others' questions.
Pretend Play
Children learn cognitive skills, social skills, and acquire emotional intelligence, and become functioning adults through the power of pretend play. Let us not ignore the evolutionary advantages that pretend play offers. There is no age to do this. I am not saying have a pretend tea party (although that would be amazing), but whatever you want in life, live as if you already have it, live it - Pretend play life scenarios. Some call it manifestation. What it actually does is it allows your brain to perceive possible challenges and find solutions to them so that you can achieve the life of your dreams. It is all in your brain - your success and your failure. pretend play as you'd like your life to turn out to be.
Take risks
Children are not afraid that they might fail, they do things indifferent of the final result. Yes, they cry when the result isn't what they expected, but then, they wipe their tears and have a go at it again and again till they make it happen. Taking risks is very, very important to our growth as people. Take a chance with that person you wanted to hire but weren't sure of, take a chance with the project you believe in, take a chance to grab the opportunity to change your career.
Fear is our friend; it helps us keep the crazy in check, but letting your fear overpower your willingness is what truly ages us. A child just jumps from the couch, and maybe they will get hurt, but next time they will have a perfect landing. Sometimes it takes 3 jumps and sometimes 5 to get that perfect calculated landing, but no child ever learned to jump by being cautious and not jumping at all.
So jump - take that leap despite it!
This is my all-time favourite. Children are savage, unhinged. They do not give a shit and learning that as an adult was one of the hardest things for me to do. If we think about what others will think, then what will they think about? Be kind and leave it to them. Overthinking, for people like me, is unavoidable. But instead of overthinking about others, when I started channelising that energy to overthink towards the objective or the process, it made my life so much better and easier even.
To me, to not give a fuck does not mean not take into consideration other emotions and the effect my actions will have on their lives. It means to not worry about how they perceive me after I do what I want to do. Try it in small aspects of your life and do it further as you get more comfortable.
Be Creative
To be creative means to be imaginative, to learn to imagine and then to apply that imagination. A lot of careers require people to be creative. Sadly, most of the education systems across the world only create a labor force and stifle creativity. One of the few good things about COVID was that people were finally too free and bored to be imaginative. Cooking, drawing, singing, playing instruments, picking a sport - this is how children become creative, and adults are no different.
Fostering a hobby is not to kill time but to learn the creative process of analysis and application. Take gardening, for example, it is not a calming hobby or one you can do when you are free. It has to be done consistently to see results. But while doing so, your brain is stimulated, and it helps with cognitive functions too.
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