We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit.
David SuzukiRead
One of the joys of being a grandparent is getting to see the world again through the eyes of a child.
Interpretation
Being a grandparent allows one to experience the innocence and wonder of childhood anew.
This quote highlights the unique perspective that grandparents gain when they interact with their grandchildren. It suggests that through observing the world as seen by a child, grandparents can rediscover joy, curiosity, and a fresh appreciation for life's simple pleasures, thus rejuvenating their own outlook on life.
In practice
In a family gathering, I shared this quote to express how much joy my grandchildren bring into my life.
We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit.
As parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts we need to start getting out into nature with the young people in our lives. Families play a key role in getting kids outside.
The medical literature tells us that the most effective ways to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and many more problems are through healthy diet and exercise. Our bodies have evolved to move, yet we now use the energy in oil instead of muscles to do our work.
Do you know how much land is under ice, rock and snow? Do you know why 90 percent of us live within 100 kilometres of the U.S. border? We have this idea we're a vast country. But the reality is that a lot of it, a huge amount, is uninhabitable.
We no longer see the world as a single entity. We've moved to cities and we think the economy is what gives us our life, that if the economy is strong we can afford garbage collection and sewage disposal and fresh food and water and electricity. We go through life thinking that money is the key to having whatever we want, without regard to what it does to the rest of the world.
The future doesn't exist. The only thing that exists is now and our memory of what happened in the past. But because we invented the idea of a future, we're the only animal that realized we can affect the future by what we do today.
I don't think anybody feels like they're a good parent. Or if people think they're good parents, they ought to think again.
Each member of the family in his own cell of consciousness, each making his own patchwork quilt of reality - collecting fragments of experience here, pieces of information there. From the tiny impressions gleaned from one another, they created a sense of belonging and tried to make do with the way they found each other.
One of the most important gifts a parent can give a child is the gift of accepting that child's uniqueness.
The parents age must be remembered, both for joy and anxiety.
My family’s said to me from the beginning, ‘People are always going to tell you to pick what you want to be when you grow up. You take that and throw it out the window, that’s garbage. People are complicated and we love many things and we’re passionate about many things. You can be a human rights activist and also be doing these comedy plays in your community and that’s OK. All those things are a part of who you are and you can love them equally.
And that was the greatest heartbreak of all- no matter how spectacular we want our children to be, no matter how perfect we pretend they are, they are bound to disappoint. As it turns out, kids are more like us than we think: damaged, through and through.
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