Sponge

Getting my cardio points in for the day and thought about the state of affairs of our over-programmed children...

Imagine a used, dried up sponge. This is our bodies and brains if we get stuck. If we become too one-dimentional. For example. If our children get plugged into one set youth sport at the age of 6. This is the state of youth anything these days, from music to dance to soccer. If you are not specializing at an early age you may not "make it".

This is also happening to us in old age, but mostly out of fear. We get trapped by our own habits, our own routines, our own little box of chores and activities.

Our minds and our bodies become to shrivel and dry out like that old, used, dried up sponge.

Now imagine a new, wet, soapy sponge that expands and becomes open to the task at hand. This is the mind and body of a child that is soaking up multiple languages, arts, learning musical instruments, playing multiple sports in the back yard with friends, nothing organized, all motivated by curiosity and the inherent challenge of the activity itself.

This can also be us as we age well into our 90s! We can learn how to dance, paint, write, new languages, travel, garden, take up a sport, we can still live outside of our little box. We can still grow.

So, you can choose, soak it up and stay wet and wild, or shrivel up and dry out. Be the sponge.

--Charry