Six Things I Have Learnt From My 3 Year Old

Six wonderful life lessons, learnt from a 3 year old child. In short: Enjoy life.

1. Take pleasure in the small things in life. Be it just watching pigeons from the window or licking her fingers while eating chocolate, the expression on her face is worth watching. We adults are always so in the pursuit of some bigger pleasures, that we miss out on the finer joys of life. We miss out on our present.

2. Show your appreciation. Many times she randomly comes and hugs and kisses me. Ask her why and she will say, because you picked me up from school or because you gave me water to drink. This is something we should definitely learn from kids because many a times we hold back on even saying a simple thank you, not because we don’t want to but because we let our egos come in the way.

3. Laugh heartily.
She laughs for simple things and her laughter is so from the heart, so genuine that just watching her while laughing brings a smile to my face.

4. Do not hold grudges. Many times, I lose my patience and yell at her unreasonably, but children forget easily and forgive even more easily. So when I go to her after a while she gives me her same sweet smile and goes on blabbering normally as if nothing has happened. Again something worth learning: life is too short to hold on to bitter thoughts and play blame games on whose fault it was. Just forgive and let go of the resentment, it will save you precious time.

5. Go slow. We adults are always in a hurry. We finish the chore at hand and rush towards the next task.  But kids enjoy each and everything they do. So after I give her a bath, she splashes water in the tub and only comes out after the last drop of water has drained from the tub. She does not treat bathing as a chore but fully enjoys it. If we adults treat chores which we anyways have to do with the same enthusiasm wouldn’t it make the work at hand a little less taxing?

6. Be content. We play this little game with our daughter. We have told her that every time she finishes a meal, God will reward her with a candy in her father’s pocket. So after finishing a meal she very religiously prays to God with her eyes closed and hands folded while I quietly slip the candy in my husband’s pocket. She then comes and checks her dad’s pocket and when she gets her sweet, she is elated.  That is it, she is satisfied, she does not ask for more. Again, a lesson worth learning, we adults are never satisfied, whenever we get what we want, we always crave for more.

Reshma Gude was a busy software professional until a couple of months back; she is now an even busier full time mum, juggling between housework, caring for her child and blogging at Reshma’s Musings.

Pic credit: Nisha (Used under a Creative Commons license)

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