My seven month old daughter has it all figured out. She quickly smiles if something happens that makes her happy. It is so easy to get her going with laughing or giggling. All I have to do is tickle her under her arms, or make a sudden, dramatically goofy face (usually accompanied with a weird, loud noise that startles her) and she erupts with pure joy.
It's so clear for her. I find myself more than mildly jealous. Very young children are on to something that seems to evaporate once they get a bit older - often after only a handful of years. They may be more open to happiness because of one core reason: they don't have the ability to suffer....
Read the full blog post from Psychology Today
A interesting article, but rather than developing a "solution" to mental suffering after becoming mature individuals wouldn't it be better to stop the societal mechanics that instill discontentment before it has a chance to negatively effect an impressionable child?
ReplyDeleteIt was refreshing however to hear the author acknowledge a notable difference between physical pain and mental suffering with pain being natural a survival instinct and the suffering the result of (supposedly)negative mental stimulus, western culture tends to make no distinction between the two.