All the World's A Stage

“All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;…”- Shakespeare

Somewhere along our lifetime, there’s a transition that happens. As a child our joy and curiosity have no limits:

We sing off-key to a song we know. We dance in public no matter who is watching. We often fall all over the people we love playfully demanding hugs, kisses, high-fives, and more hugs. And we ask an exhaustive amount of questions, usually beginning with why.

Simply put: we live. In the moment. We don’t spend too much time obsessing over our thoughts or the thoughts of others. Instead, we are highly aware of the present.

And then something changes: we stop living and we start performing.

The performance begins as a harmless act at first: we get dressed so that other people can take us more seriously; instead of simply getting dressed for ourselves. We post on Instagram not so that we can scroll through our personal memory lane, but to put ourselves on display for other people to like and comment.

But then the performance never turns off and we start to make significant decisions based on how other people might perceive us, like what to study, what job to take, and who you should marry or date.

The internal question is always “what will my friends/family/the public think of me?” and never “what do I think of myself”? In moderation, it makes complete sense to be considerate of how your actions might affect the people around you. But is that how you should live your entire life?

We limit our capacity to just be silly and joyful. Suddenly we are acutely aware that people are watching, and that they might even be judging us. Gone are the days we sing and dance just because. Now we pay other people to sing and dance for us.

There was a time when you measured the value of an activity or a hobby not based on how much money it brought you or how it elevated your status in society, but simply by how much joy it brought you. You didn’t care that you weren’t particularly good at something, you just valued that it made you feel good.

Somewhere in this transition, you started regulating your joy and putting conditions and unnecessary rules around your happiness. You spend more time talking yourself out of the things you want or the things you love, instead of hyping yourself up for all the things you deserve.

(Of course, I’m not talking about the conditions we practice to keep us safe, healthy, and law-abiding— try to use your critical thinking skills here)

So the question remains: how do we connect back to our inner child?

I understand that for most of us living in a capitalist society (that exploits and underpays our labor), it leaves us little room to think about anything but survival. Some of us are parents or have big responsibilities. I’m not saying you should forfeit your hourly wages to stay home and paint or to learn how to play an instrument (unless you want to). And I am not saying that you have to spend money (again, unless you want to).

I’m really talking about simple things. Think back to your childhood. Think about the kids who could spend hours outside, with just rocks, sticks, and grass— because their imaginations alone could take them anywhere in the world.

You might argue that imagination is child’s play. I would argue that growing up and losing our imagination is exactly the problem. In forfeiting our innate sense of creativity and joy, we forfeit our personal visions; we lose the basic act of coming up with new solutions to old ways of thinking and seeing and being. We risk losing the small magic in our lives that make the mundane fascinating.

I know it’s not always that simple. It’s impossible to hang on to joy every day. Happiness, like any other emotion, comes and goes. But I’m not trying to get you to set unrealistic expectations. And I know you are probably rolling your eyes at the fluffiness of this post, but I’m making a small request:

when the opportunity arises for you to live, will you take it?

Will you close the curtain to your performance, take off the mask, and live for yourself?