Before Life Got Heavy

About two weeks ago, I found myself standing by the window of my house—not scrolling, not replying to anyone’s messages or emails—just staring.
Staring outside from my fourth-floor apartment.

Down in the courtyard, on that dusty ground, I saw a group of kids playing like they had nothing else to do but be alive and present. It was around noon, and I was already fatigued from some work I was finishing. I was tired in that quiet adult way—mentally full, emotionally flat.

Then I saw it.

One kid, dashing away from his friend, lost his footing and took a very hard fall. It was the kind of fall that makes you flinch even when it’s not your body hitting the ground. I felt it for him.

But what surprised me was what happened next.

He stood up immediately, wiped the dust off his clothes, and continued sprinting—as if the ground had just apologized. I remember wondering, where did the pain go?

I kept watching the kids for a few minutes, letting my mind drift from my work, taking a break. And that’s when it hit me how different our two worlds were. Standing there by the window, I realized three things that stayed with me.

First, kids feel everything—fully.

They laugh loudly. They cry loudly—boys and girls alike. They forgive wholeheartedly. When a kid is sad, they look sad. When they’re angry, they look angry. They have no shame, no emotional buffering, and they definitely don’t pretend.

But somewhere along the way, something shifts.

We start suppressing how we feel. We begin to feel quietly. We learn how to smile through pain. We avoid crying—not because we are strong, but because we’re afraid someone might ask us, “Are you okay?”
And slowly, one quiet moment at a time, we lose our honest, authentic selves.

We carry five years of emotional burden into tomorrow.

The second thing I noticed is that kids bounce back quickly.

Look at that kid who fell. Kids reset fast. To them, every day is a clean slate. Every morning is a new beginning. Maybe it’s because kids don’t fear failure—they expect it, accept it, and grow through it.

As adults, we do the opposite.

We treat wounds like souvenirs. We replay mistakes like our favorite series—Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Friends—episode after episode. We hold grudges we don’t even remember the origin of. We attach shame to failure and take years to look past it.

One small setback, and suddenly we were never good at something.
One failed sum, and math was never our calling.

Yes, we bounce back… eventually.
But only after overthinking, fear, and long internal negotiations with ourselves.

I’m not saying we repeat the same mistakes because we fail to internalize lessons. I’m saying maybe—just maybe—channeling your inner child could help you take it easier on yourself.

Lastly, children see possibility everywhere.

Pablo Picasso once said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” And that’s true. Imagine your younger self trying to live your adult life—they would approach everything more creatively than we do.

Children see possibilities; we see problems.

Give a child a stick, and they decide whether it’s a gun, a magic wand, or a microphone. We once had ideas. We didn’t fear judgment. We didn’t shrink our imaginations to fit schedules, deadlines, or grown-up expectations.

Let me be clear—I’m not saying you become delulu.
I’m saying there is value in letting your younger self breathe again.

Now, I know kids don’t worry about rent, deadlines, heartbreak, grief, or the weight of living. But even then, we can learn something from the way their minds stretch.

That’s why my heart breaks when I see kids not living the way they were meant to. Kids selling sweets in the streets. Kids whose innocence has been taken away by someone cruel. Because when you take someone’s childhood, you scar the adult they become.

In many ways, our childhood is our first haven—our fallback, our place of softness. Some bad people are not bad because they were born that way, but because their childhood was taken away from them.

So fellow Toastmasters and guests, as I stood by the window of my fourth-floor apartment watching those kids below, I was reminded that childhood isn’t something we leave behind.

It’s a place we can return to—when we breathe, when we slow down, when we allow the world to be gentle with us again. We may not have the innocence we once had, but we still have the ability to be present, grateful, and alive.

And maybe… just maybe—that’s enough.