My friend posted this photo of himself on Facebook (yes, I got permission to use it..) with the comment “I swear, one day I will actually grow up. In the meantime …” 
People started commenting “Yeah, never grow up..”, “Grownies are no FUN” etc. This just bugs me beyond believe. Displaying random silliness and not caring what others think about it, does not mean you are not grown up. On the contrary! And no, I don’t think never growing up is the coolest thing one can do.
Never wanting to grow up is the most ignorant and laziest life form there is.. Never wanting to grow up means not taking responsibility of your own life, it means not taking responsibility of your own emotions, it means not learning every day and growing every day.
Being an adult yet able to express childlike wonder, being able to be in the moment with so much presence only a child can muster, actually requires you to have grown up! It requires us to have gone through the motions of re-learning. We all get conditioned with “should be”, “must”, “have to”, “expected to”. We all get conditioned to worry about the future, most of us are shown how to ruminate in the past.
We have to GROW UP and re-learn, but this time with more understanding, rather than presence and innocence being the default state we are born with. Understanding our shadows, allowing and accepting all emotions and being able to let them be. Understanding we are not our emotions or our thoughts, understanding the wonders of life and the universe and therefore being able to be present like an innocent child.
I wish for a world where everyone takes the responsibility to grow up. For a world of love, innocence and silliness…
The beginning of the year I took part in a 9 week Stanford Study called “Cultivating Compassion”. The study was initiated by the 
Better You, Better World 