When we are children, so much of what we experience is new and exciting to us. Childlike wonder is a marvelous thing, and no other feeling is quite like it. It is excitement in the very heart of our being. Part of the feeling is due to the newness of childhood experiences—we’ve never previously considered them as a possibility. As we get older and have a range of experiences behind us, our ability to recapture that feeling falls off dramatically. We may still have new experiences, but they have familiar elements—they aren’t completely foreign to us. When we get to this point in our lives, we risk becoming jaded—not even being open to the kind of childlike wonder that we experienced in our youth. Can we keep the ability to find wonder in the world?
