A World of Adventure

I was holding my little niece the other day and for a moment I was completely overwhelmed by her frailty.

She is not yet four weeks old and is so tiny and so very vulnerable.

I even wondered if I should be permitted to hold her. After all, I can be such a big clutz and what if I dropped her?!

I got over myself after a few minutes and just sat watching her little face as her eyes looked here and there, unfocussed, but still looking at the wonderful world around her.

Can you imagine how she’ll feel the first time the world comes into focus? What will she think of the shapes and colours?

How will she make sense of it all?

And there will be so much more for her to learn as she gets bigger.

She’ll learn how to use her little hands to pick things up and put them in her mouth, there’ll be uncharted floors to crawl across, hallways to run down and so many other things to explore.

Every day will be an adventure as she discovers things she didn’t know existed the day before. She’ll find out not all food comes out of a breast; discover the cool, soft and slightly prickly feeling of grass beneath her little toes; and hear the sound of her own voice laughing.

The list of things she has yet to learn goes on and on and on.

I know adults are always learning too. But our days are not usually filled with so many new adventures. Instead, our eyes often view the world through lenses  that are a just little darkened and a little jaded by our experiences.

And we will do things because that’s just the way we’ve always done them.

We’ll order the same meal at our favourite restaurant every time we visit because we know it’s good.

We’ll leave our homes at exactly 6.15am every day and jog the same route through our local streets because we know it will get us home at exactly 6.55am.

Or we just won’t notice how blue the sky is on a summer’s day because we’re to busy rushing around, leading our lives.

It is a frequent tragedy that with our growth from newborn to child to teenager to adult, we sometimes lose our ability to see things through fresh eyes. And we forget that doing new things is part of living…part of life’s adventure.

Holding my little niece and watching her discover the world, reminded me of these things.

So this week I’m going to break a few old habits and do something differently every day.

I’m going to create my own adventure.

And perhaps I’ll view the world with fresh eyes and discover something wonderful in the process.