Some of the most enthusiastic people we will ever know are kids.
I was a teacher, and as a teacher I found my self doing things I never thought I would do again like having swinging contests , playing cooties, and screaming. Do you remember when you could scream and no one thought you were crazy?
I grew up in Gretna, La. and I was the most enthusiastic kid you can imagine. Everything and anything was possible. There were no limitations. I looked for fairies in trees and in bushes. I believed in magic. The world was this never ending source of wonder. My face must have been in a constant state of awe. Nature was amazing to me. I saw birds fly and I wanted to fly with them. I wanted to become small and crawl with bugs and ants.
So this one night when I was around 4 yrs old, I had this dream. And in this dream I discovered that all you had to do was believe with all your heart and you could fly. In the dream I mustered all of my belief , I raised up my arms and I took off. I was buzzing people and cars and everyone was pointing at me saying “WOW look at that girl!” I was flying high, zooming down. I remember the feeling in my stomach like when you ride a roller coaster. I was laughing and having the best time of my life.
When I woke up I was so excited. I couldn’t believe that no one had told me about this! I couldn’t believe that I had figured it out.
I got up from my bed and I walked down the hall. My mom dad were in den watching TV. My dad was on the couch and my mom was in her chair and they were engrossed in Cannon or Kojak or Night Stalker or Rockford files or something.
I stood in the den and I shouted at the top of my lungs, “LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!” And I leapt horizontally into the air.
For one second I was suspended. For that one second I thought I was going to take off and fly around the room. My parents would be pointing, amazed and I would zoom around the house, up to the beams. I would wow them with how I could maneuver.
We had this orange shag carpet and you would think that shag carpet would give a little or there would be some padding, but no.
I hit the carpet horizontally knocking every bit of wind out of my body and, of course all of the joy and my enthusiasm went with it, deflated.
So there I was, lying face down on the carpet, embarrassed. I looked up at my parents and my parents had not even look up from the TV. They were still watching their program, no reaction whatsoever. I mean, I had just screamed at the top of my lungs, jumped horizontally into the air, fallen like lead balloon, and was now lying face down on the carpet unable to move anything but my head and they had no reaction at all.
I began to crawl out of the room. about the time I reached the hallway leading to my room, my mom said,”Are you ok?” “YEEEESSSSS, I croaked, sounding like some frog creature crawling from the slime because I still couldn’t breathe. I crawled back to my room, very dejected without one ounce of enthusiasm left. I thought about it later . I thought, I must have done these kinds of things all of the time. There was no reaction. And you know that kids do this. “Hey Mom! Mom! Mom! Look what I can do!” always when you’re in the middle of a conversation or watching TV.
It’s sad. Over the course of our lives our enthusiasm gets deflated time and time again and we lose it. Its like when you meet very old people they are often grumpy. They’ve lost their enthusiasm. It’s a shame we can’t maintain our wondrous, exciting, enthusiastic outlook all of our lives.
That’s why I make it a point to try and maintain my childish enthusiasm – I try to get recklessly excited at least once a week – I want to do my damnedest to be enthusiastic until the day that I die.
rebeccaseye 