Adulting is Killing Your Inner Kid: Here’s Your Resurrection Plan
We want to feel like a kid again because our childhood was freedom on steroids for most of us.
As Arthur Rimbaud said:
“Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.”
For most of us, our childhood was the happiest time of our lives.
Why wouldn’t it be!?
We were carefree, our needs were met, and the biggest challenge was eating our veggies or bargaining for a later bedtime.
Life was simple and joyful back then for us.
But as we got older, that lightness we had as kids starts to fade.
We as adults, we take life and ourselves too seriously.
Now we live with ever-present stresses and responsibilities lurking around every corner.
So we think that the magic of the childhood we had now feels like a dream from the past with no point of return.
Did you know that reconnecting with our inner kid help regulate our stress, mental health, be more self-aware and boost our happiness levels?
So, what if I told you that you can actually recapture that childlike wonder and it doesn’t require a time machine?
This post is for you with practical ideas to do no matter how old you are or what you do.
Because let’s face it, who likes to grow old and leave the best moments behind?!
1. Remember The Passions You Had as a Kid
Think back, what set your soul on fire as a kid?
For me it was sports and video games. For you, it could be solving puzzles or art.
Maybe you were the kid who collected Pokémon cards (I still have my Yugioh collection!).
Whatever your childhood fixation was, it made you happy and alive.
Yet at some point, you drifted away from it.
Why? Let’s get personal for a moment.
For me, it was a slow transition from priority to pastime.
I loved football as a kid, living and breathing it daily.
But over time, it went from intentional passion to an occasional hobby as other pursuits took over.
Now, the reasons we abandon our joys as kids are a mixed bag.
Realistically speaking, I don’t have any good reason not to involve myself in some type of men’s league.
At some point, I wanted to be a football player actually.
But the infrastructure to support that in my country was pretty much not there and my parents were all about college.
You might relate to that in any other sport or passion you enjoy,
This is just one example of reasons for not doing what makes you and me happy.
The thing is when I play sports now, it still feels the same to me, and maybe that’s not the same for everyone else.
But I’m still as competitive as ever and involved in many outdoor groups around my interests for years now.
Now the question is; why I didn’t play them anymore at some point?
Well, I thought that these games weren’t giving me the same dopamine that it used to when I was a kid.
Obviously a lot has changed since I was young.
We now more than ever have instant gratification left and right.
So why even bother playing something that can take hours to have a payoff when we can get our high instantly on social media?
I’m not going to go into depth as to why these platforms are bad for you.
I argue that we live in a period where social media is necessary.
It helps us to connect and get more things done in many ways, so I’m not against them,
I’m only in disfavor if they take the center of your life without a clear goal in real life.
These apps take hours of our day and I’d rather spend these hours doing some sports or something more interesting.
If it wasn’t for my work online, I’d have gladly dropped these apps to the ground.
Now if this rings true for you, it’s time to course correct.
Changes here can be gradual or drastic depending on how your life is going.
For me, I go all in on any change I want to make.
But for you, it could be hard to change a habit right away.
So here’s a small trick you can do to slowly bring back that kid inside of you to life again.
Commit to a weekly “child’s hour”.
If you can add more hours, that’s even better.
This is when you unapologetically immerse yourself in a childhood passion for 60 glorious minutes.
Whatever that is, cut an hour from your social media time and replace it with your hobby.
You’ll feel more in tune and energetic and clear in the head.
This can slowly transition to longer periods and will surely reignite your soul.
Now this takes me to the second point.
2. Instant Gratification Should be Dead
If you’re looking to feel young at heart, you have to think long term about this.
Once I shortened my time on social media over the past years or on things that shouldn’t matter, I filled that time with hubbies I liked as a kid.
And if you do the same, you’ll realize something.
You’ll notice that these things you enjoyed as a kid are usually more creative and artistic and mentally stimulating.
It doesn’t matter if your hobby or sport is physically relaxed like drawing or charged like running, you’ll notice the upsides in time.
Aside from physical and mental benefits, one of these upsides is that you’ll redevelop your tolerance for these activities.
Now here’s why this is better.
This dopamine hit feels so great that you don’t have to feel guilty about pursuing it as it only has positive effects.
It just feels different and way better.
Now, there’s one key thing here you need to know.
Even though we know all of this, we still don’t do it at all.
Based on research, there’s one fundamental factor that takes us away from feeling like a kid again.
Dare I say it’s almost always the result of one simple fact.
This fact can be described as an undetailed map when you have either unresolved issues from your past or uncertainty about the future.
You have a lack of understanding of what happened to you or what is going to happen to you.
Such thoughts drive you in many directions that slowly change how you see the world radically.
So by default, you will gradually tend to stop listening to that kid inside of you since you have more issues to deal with.
Days become weeks. Months turn to years and before you know it, you don’t event remember to have fun.
The obvious solution is to increase your understanding of this.
In other words, there’s no better moment than right here, right now.
Now that’s a story all related to self-awareness which I wrote about before if you want to dive deeper into that.
The less self-aware, the more anxious you get, the more astray your inner kid will get.
And all of this is a recipe for self-sabotage.
So, try to realize that when you’re stressed out, simply taking a break to do something fun is enough to make you feel better again.
Sometimes, our issues lie mainly in our heads, not in real life most of the time.
3. Go Outside Like You Used to And Be Curious
In such an interesting era, my childhood still had video games here and there.
But the core of it was getting outside and doing sports.
I still vividly recall the life-giving energy of playing outdoors with neighborhood pals.
How I was eagerly awaiting my mom’s after-school snacks to share with friends, becoming as inseparable as siblings at the time.
As a shy kid, I spent most of my childhood inside and then most of my teenage years outside.
And I can tell you that getting outside for me at least still feels the same as it did as a kid.
Its now something so ingrained in my life that I won’t drop and schedule my life around it.
This is a bit funny since I keep seeing these posts where people say “life doesn’t feel the same anymore”.
I’m sure you know what I mean.
They make claims like you don’t hear the birds tripping anymore and life is just less vibrant.
At one point in my early 20s, I actually agreed with these posts.
But as I started to force myself to get outside more, I realized that the same smells and sounds were all still there.
In the heat of it, I realized something:
The sounds and everything I liked as a kid were always there, I just wasn’t present enough to experience them.
So, I fixed my sleep schedule and I was able to hear those birds again.
The point is that more often than not, you slowly dim the kid inside you due to simply not prioritizing what makes that kid alive.
You don’t stop playing when you grow old, you grow old because you stopped playing.
4. Socialize and Nurture Your Vital Connections
Now, I know that this point is not easy for anyone to do.
Social anxiety is a common issue and a topic for another time.
But I want to clarify that I don’t mean here to inject yourself into parties for the sake of meeting new people.
You can easily enjoy some of your hubbies with a close friend or two or joining meet up groups around your hubbies.
There are ways to do that, so don’t think of the extreme right away.
Here’s the thing.
When I look back at the happiest moments of my life (I ask yo to do the same), what might you realize?
For me, I realized that some of these moments didn’t just involve me but involved others too.
Be it friends or family, these people made my memories more memorable.
Without them, I believe my memories wouldn’t be the same.
Now I’m sure that many of us also feel happy in solitude, myself included.
This time is crucial for self-introspection and to simply regulate our emotions and thoughts.
I can’t tell you enough how much I love being alone doing my own things far away from others.
But there’s a difference between being alone and loneliness.
According to a research published by the University of Arizona, people don’t feel lonely until they spend 3 quarters of their time alone.
That’s fine to a certain degree but this isn’t how we should be all of our lives.
Even though I enjoy spending my time alone, I still dedicate some time in my schedule to go out and meet new people.
This is easy for me because what drives this interest is the sense of curiosity of meeting new people and hearing their stories.
That helped me to make many friends from many parts of the world.
You see, the truth is that whether you like it or not, we’ve been social creatures since the dawn of time.
We didn’t survive harsh ancestral realities by being lone wolves. We’re social creatures designed to be part of tribal living.
According to Popular Science, we humans owe our evolution to friendships and tribal belongings.
That’s quite the findings ha?
And here’s more research to prove it.
Ever heard of the blue zones?
These are the regions where people tend to live the longest compared to others.
One of these reasons was found to be having strong social gatherings and times with others.
The sad thing is that we know all of this, but we still tend to let these vital connections fray.
We get consumed by responsibilities, let awkwardness creep in, or consciously withdraw due to past hurts.
Guess what, despite all of that, we’re still wired to thrive through human bonds.
We may rationalize independence, and trust me, I did that and still do most of the time.
But we’ll always crave the spirit of kinship and the sense of adventure that fueled our young spirits as kids.
Nothing beats the feeling of knowing that there’s a friend or a partner who truly gets you!
Now, I have to admit that a lot of us struggle with loneliness and it’s super sad and frustrating.
It’s sad to crave something that we kind of avoided for years.
I also know a lot of us don’t have perfect families, but I think it’s really important that we do the best with what we have.
Now, some say that friends come and go but family stays forever.
I agree and disagree with this idea at the same time.
What matters in my opinion is to have people in our life who are there no matter what, doesn’t matter if they are blood related or not.
Know that you can always make more friends and that some might hurt you or disappoint you in some way.
That’s really fine. That’s life.
Some of us consider our friends more loving and caring than our own family for many reasons.
The best thing you can do is to make the best of the family and friends you have.
Its all a learning experience, and I think that’s what makes life beautiful among other things to do as an adult.
The point of life is to live fully and hopefully healthily longer, not to simple stacking years of existence.
So if you’re looking to make more friends, meeting the right partner or starting a family, I wish you all the luck.
At the end, we need people who will support us, kind of like how we had people supporting us when we were kids.
5. For God’s Sake, Shut Down Your Inner Critique
As we age, negative self-talk tends to creep in:
“I’m too old for that,”
“People will think I’m ridiculous,”
“I’ve outgrown fantasy and whimsy.”
These talks were some that took me away from doing what I enjoy doing now for a long time.
This inner critique deprives us of joy and keeps us stuck in limiting self-beliefs.
But I realized something during the years.
Where did this stern voice come from?
It certainly wasn’t born with the dreamy kid we once were.
There are many ways to tackle this critique but for me, I’d treated as an enemy and an ally at the same time.
I treat it as an enemy if I notice that it starts to deny me opportunities, experiences or novelty.
On the flip side, I treat it also as an ally by simply following the thread of why I feel a certain way when it comes up.
It’s like a wake-up call of some sort to pay attention to something.
The same applies here when you tell yourself many reasons why you shouldn’t do that hobby like you were once.
Your inner kid hasn’t gone anywhere.
He just got muffled by well-meaning socialization and self-consciousness conditioned over decades.
So today, I ask you to make the conscious choice to un-mute your childlike spirit.
Does part of you feel silly diving back into youthful passions?
Tell that critic “NOT TODAY” and keep showing up for your rediscovered sense of awe.
There’s profound power in giving ourselves permission to be beginners again, stumbling and learning with the humility of children.
The yearning to feel like a kid again isn’t mere whimsy.
We have an intuition that we have isolated ourselves from essential parts of the human experience necessary for flourishing.
I still like to dip my cookies in milk every time I have that like I used to as a kid. (And I LOVE it).
I still play football and constantly pushing myself to try new things.
It’s very fulfilling what you become aware of when you let that kid inside you out.
As far as I can tell, we heal parts of our soul when we reintegrate a beginner’s mind, playfulness, and awe into our days like we were kids.
We become more spontaneous, imaginative, and lighthearted; gifts our stern adult selves desperately need.
Don’t resign yourself to soul-dimming responsibilities and routines.
The kid within you is restless, yearning to be reawakened.
So, take the first step today and start living some of your hubbies and passions like you are still a kid.
Thanks for reading!
What is your favorite hobby as a kid? Are you still doing it?
Let me know below.
Until next time 🙂
