I’d mentioned that I’m reading the book The Mystery of Children, by Mike Mason. Great book. I love this passage on work and play:
Adults largely avoid working with children because children have an unnerving habit of turning work into play. This drives adults crazy because we tend to be so goal-oriented. Adults know too well what children have yet to learn: Work is supposed to be drudgery. Children are not yet enslaved by work, nor do they intend to be. They are quite content living all day long in a big, happy playground.
When it comes to work, children must eventually learn that being responsible, serving others, and doing honest labor can be good for the soul. Adults must learn that the soul of all work is play.
Children don’t play because they are four years old; they play because they are free of worries and a world of wonder lies before them begging to be explored. A child’s life is not a bed of roses. Their lot can be just as difficult as ours, yet in the midst of the darkest, most twisted circumstances, something in a child keeps reaching for, and finding, the light.
All of us are children at heart, but we need children to remind us of this. Children are a bridge to our more innocent past. In German, the word for child is kind, which gives us our word kindergarten. Related to this is the word kindling, meaning little sticks that set big ones on fire. Why not get close to children and let them kindle your heart?
First of all, I love the description of how kids view work. When I think of the happiest, most successful grown-ups I know, their work doesn’t seem much like work at all. They’re having too much fun.
I also love the image of children as kindling, with an ability to set us dry, cold grown-ups on fire. When I think of the happiest, most successful grown-ups I know, they also seem to have a lot of kindling in their life.
[tags]work, play, Mike Mason, Mystery of Children, success[/tags]