A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. Its only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate.”
- Steven Pressfield, Do the Work
My sons, who are 3 and 5, think they are smart (which they are) and invincible (which they aren’t).
They want to know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING! And they average at about 1000 ‘Why’ questions a day
If one of them asks me why the sky is blue and I tell him it’s because some knights on flying dinosaurs painted it that color, he will believe me. Not only because he is a kid and hence naive or because he just trusts me. But because he believes my answer to be possible.
He can believe the unbelievable.
His brain has not yet been put through education, deceit, bullying, logic, needing to be the first and best at everything, not wanting to look stupid when blurting out the first (impossible) thing that comes to mind.
He has no rational thought yet (or not very much). Everything is still possible.
He is bold and audacious (bodacious!). And at the same time he can refuse to go to bed because monsters might be under his bed.
He says:’Mom let’s run down the hill as fast as we can to see if we will start to fly.’
Or ‘Does a house explode if you drop it from a great height?’
And if I tell him that we cannot fly (unless we have a plane or other flying device) and that it’s pretty impossible to take a house and lift it high enough, he looks at me like I’m from Mars.
Or like he wanted to say: ‘Dare to imagine Mom! Dare to be bold!’
And everyday I do. I dare to be bold. I dare to imagine what could be possible.
It sprouts a lot of creativity. And kids do know how to solve a lot of adult problem in a creative way:
The Greek debt crisis for example. Or the Iceland ash cloud problem. Or even the Dead birds mystery.
So be bold and imagine the impossible. Dare to fly and dream! Dare to be creative and speak up with your ideas!