Thought for the day...

This quote comes from my mother's church newsletter from last month. Her pastor shared a story from an e-mail he'd received. It had a ton of thought provoking statements that I will be sharing with you all over the next few weeks.

This is the first -

We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.

My daughter recently turned 18. That's a milestone birthday. Although I kidded her for months about being "too old to play", or by telling her that adults "can no longer have fun", I don't personally believe that.

When I turned 18, I wanted everyone around me to see me as an adult. I thought that meant giving up all of the fun things in life and acting "more mature". The truth came several years later in the form of major disappointment in everyone around me. You see, they were adults, but not acting "mature". I resented that. I didn't understand how they could suceed in anything if they had any fun or relaxed.

A few years later it dawned on me that this handful of "immature" people had quickly become everyone that I knew above the age of 18. Was I missing something? Did they know a secret that I didn't? Exactly how were they able to get and keep jobs with these attitudes?

The answer:

I needed to relax. I needed to accept the fact that 18 was not a magic number; it was not the end of "having fun" nor did it mean that life as I knew it was over. It meant that I was in a different chapter, but still the exact same person inside.

It's perfectly fine to have fun, to get on your knees and play with children, to run and jump in the yard, play on the playground, and roll up your pants to wade in the creek. The problems come when you think that you're too good or too mature to do that!