When we are young, dreams shape our world. We know that nothing is impossible, and we can become whoever we want to be.
And even if we are now a bit older and wiser than we once were, there is always a memory floating just beneath the surface of consciousness – a singular knowledge of who we truly are, and what we are capable of becoming in the future, no matter what age.
Here are a few great quotes on recapturing the energy and imagination of our earliest times, to inspire a spirit of hopefulness and joy in remembering who we wanted to be…
“All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Often we forget that our true direction exists inside of us – and has always existed inside of us, ever since our earliest days on this earth. To rediscover our calling we don’t have to seek outwardly, instead we need to learn to be still, and listen to what our inner child is telling us.
“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.” – Gabriel García Márquez
When we say to ourselves that we don’t have the energy, or that we are too busy to engage in the things that bring us joy (but perhaps not immediate success or stability) we are missing the chance to reignite the essential passions in life – the very passions that give us the energy needed to complete all the other responsibilities we must attend to each day.
“Our contradictions. We are in such a hurry to grow up, and then we long for our lost childhood. We make ourselves ill earning money, and then spend all our money on getting well again. We think so much about the future that we neglect the present, and thus experience neither the present nor the future. We live as if we were never going to die, and die as if we had never lived.” – Paulo Coelho
Life is wonderful when we are young… and that feeling can return whenever we allow it to. Today, for one moment, try to let worries about the future drift away into the clouds, and focus on the wonderful moment that is the present.
You don’t have to change careers and cities to find happiness. Happiness comes wherever a person begins to live the life they were meant to lead.
