Vishen LakhianiFounder of Mindvalley | NYT Bestselling Author | Transforming Lives Globally

What Can Children Teach Adults? - Adora Svitak

23 Jun 2014 · 1 min

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Adora Svitak reflects on what children can teach adults, using a personal anecdote about her three-year-old cousin to illustrate children’s "spark" and love of life. She argues that adults often lose appreciation for the present and become cynical with age; by retaining rock-solid ideals and principles—qualities evident in young people—we can solve problems and act more ethically.

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I think that I've really grown in my understanding of what kids can teach not only parents, but also young people like myself, through my traveling, because I've run into a lot of kids, sometimes who are much younger than me. Like, even my baby cousin who is just. I guess she just turned three, which is crazy old. It seems like yesterday she was a baby. But I realized from her that she has this incredible spark, this love of life. Already I think that we lose some amount of appreciation for, wow, I'm here and I'm in the moment as we grow older. And I can remember I wrote a poem once where I said, like, I forget, it was a line about ideals becoming refugees. And I think that as we grow older, we definitely adopt a sort of cynicism. And so there's a tremendous value to having principles, to seeing things in black and white. It's an attitude that's often criticized because this is a world full of shades of gray. But I think that so many times, by having these rock solid ideals and principles that we see evidenced in young people, then we can really solve problems and go about our lives in more ethical ways.