The Park Moment

I was in the park this evening with my 2.5 yr old kid. She was running around with immense excitement , jumping to catch hold of every swing and slide there. I lifted her to place her at the top of a steep slide that she was very adamant to try. She laughed her way down and immediately held my hand asking me to rush to another. In that jiffy, I heard two siblings , must have been around 8 yrs of age or so talking to each other. The girl said, " Look how that baby enjoyed that slide and you are so afraid of falling!". The boy retorted , " Arre she is so small, usse toh pata bhi nahi darr kya hota hai." I was amazed at the reply. He was a smart kid who was talking not only about fear but the knowledge of our fear or acknowledgement of fear. I couldn't help interfering and told the girl that he was right ,validating his feelings and at the same time I told the boy to give it a try. But the reply set me thinking. When we are kids ,the urge to explore and learn is maximum and our fears are minimal. That's the time our growth is maximum. As we move on in life ,fears start increasing and that excitement of doing new things starts decreasing. I am not talking talking about fears of getting ourselves harmed physically only but emotionally also. The fear of losing, the fear of failing and falling, getting penalized...we just start playing everything safe. It looked like some equation to me and sadly we do fall into this abyss where we become too aware of our fears and probably give them more importance than they deserve thus stopping ourselves from living life fully.