Watching my daughter grow up is perhaps one of the greatest learning experiences I have got as an adult. As grown-ups, we tend to forget that there are many failures on the way to every achievement. As children, we were not afraid to fall down, nor reluctant to get up and try again. That is probably why our rate of learning comes down with age and asymptotically approaches the zero line in the final phases of our life. Of course, this is not to say that we can discount the physiological factors, but only to suggest that we may be able to offset those influences to some extent retaining the psychological resilience of youth and childhood.

Another difference that strikes me, and which perhaps makes children much more cheerful than us, is the excess importance that we give to results. My daughter has not mastered walking yet, and it is quite a struggle for her to climb the stairs at my home which is not an easy feat even for the steady of feet! It takes her a lot of effort to climb each step, and once she does that, she takes a minute to rejoice, to express that happiness in her own language, and bask in the glory of that accomplishment before moving on to the next step. Are we grown-ups missing out on this celebration at every small success in life by instead worrying about the next task ahead? Well, we surely cannot generalize, but I feel it’s something we need to analyze carefully. There is so much in life every day to rejoice and be grateful for, and children know this instinctively!