We friends had a get-together recently for the New Year's eve party. One of my close friends has two daughters. They were about 4 and 6 years old.

These kids like me a lot (especially the younger one). These kids asked me to tell them some funny stories.

In our school days, we had evening tuitions where there used to be a power-off an hour every day. The Local Government used to do that in order to save electricity. When the power goes off, we all used to gather together and talk about stories. Some of us would bring snacks like mangoes that were slightly salted and spiced with hot chilli powder.

I used to be the story-teller most of the times and my friends paid close attention to my stories as if they were like commentary about a crucial cricket match between India and Australia. Most of my stories would go in episodes and even days! What a good old days!

Anyways, I have n't been telling stories lately. So when these two kids asked me to tell them some interesting stories, I had a few hiccups. I told them many short stories. But they wanted another story again. I told them a story about lion. After that story was over, they wanted another story about another lion.

I told them a story about another lion. Then they wanted the lion from the previous story to fight with the lion from the story that was being told. We had so many lion-fights that day.

Later that day, these two kids fought among themselves on some game. Then they started playing again with each other after a few minutes as if they had never fought.

These things reminded me of some important lessons that we could learn from the little children; enthusiasm, open-mindedness and forgiveness.

How many times did we get tired if something did not work as how we intended in our career or business?

How many times did we develop grudge against some person if he had done something unfair to us?

How about a cold war we had with someone which was totally unnecessary?

How about a total bad day we invited just because we had a bad start on that day?

We let the unwanted stuff from the outer world spoil our inborn enthusiasm, creativity and kind hearts. Only if we could stop such junk from getting inside our heads and when we become like these little children, then the happiness is near.

A good friend of mine who reviewed this article quoted me a verse from the Bible that goes as below. I thought it was very relevant to the article.

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Nuren Nuren likes writing, teaching, people, nature and many kinds of creative work such as photography, design, studying articles related to astronomy and science. He is positive, dedicated, open-minded and always looking for a way to learn something new. One of Nuren's favorite quotes is "How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints" (by C. S. Lewis). Read More >>