Zest for life

Nigel occasionally comes into our room in the morning after he wakes up and climbs onto our bed - his aim actually is to continue sleeping (I think), maybe in the comfort of air-conditioning or he just wants to be near his loving parents (chay!) - after all, his baby sister sleeps in their room too.

But typically when he tries to fall asleep again, he suddenly realises that he isn't tired anymore. That's when he starts playing with his fingers, my hair, nose, singing etc. And when I get irritated and tell him to go back to sleep, he stops - for 2 seconds and it starts again.

It occurred to me that this is his zest for life. As adults, our aim is to lie around for as long as possible and not do anything - especially at 7am in the morning. But for young children, they don't like sleeping, lying down for long periods or just relaxing. Life to them is one big adventure, a giant playground. Resting is just the means to recharge to play more, talk more, run more, jump more, scream more and so on. I could actually see him trying very hard to close his eyes and keep still - but he just couldn't, something inside him was restless, and my guess is it's his childhood.

We should all try to remain child-like, in our energy levels. When we're low, tired and down - you just have to look around to realise that there is so much of life to live, so many things to do, and there's no point wasting it lying still. Of course, we need our rest - but that's just for another exciting day of living.

I'm trying to learn things from our children like this - so, one key to life: positivity and a zest for life.