You have to get hurt. That’s how you learn. The strongest people out there, the ones who laugh the hardest with a genuine smile; those are the people who have fought the toughest battles.

Those lines come from a site kept and updated frequently by a person who identifies herself as a nineteen year-old woman from Illinois named Amber.  I accidentally stumbled across her on-line contributions last night.  While frequently her limited life experience of almost two decades shows through, she also writes with wisdom beyond her years.  Here are a few more nuggets:

Sometimes you have to give up on people. Everyone that is in your journey is meant to be in your journey, but not everyone is meant to stay there.

The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.

Never stop loving someone because you never know when they might start loving you back. But if that person won’t change, wait until your heart voluntarily quits.

At times what “Amber” writes shows her age; “Don’t waste your time worrying about boys. Boys will come and go…”  That is exactly as it should be.  Nineteen should be nineteen and not a teenager going on thirty-five.    

Reading Amber’s writing was a catalyst for a clear line of thinking when I woke up today. What rings true today is there can be much wisdom in a youthful mind not yet clouded with the burden of lots of experience.  Conversely the knowledge of living many years can cause blindness and inability to see lucidly. 

I suppose it is human nature for someone in middle age to perceive they know more than someone half their age or younger.  And in many cases that would be true.  Yet, more is not necessarily better and a large quantity of stored memories can make sorting down to the essence of things difficult. 

It seemed I saw things so very clearly when I was sixteen years-old.  Maybe actually I did.  Right or wrong I certainly had great conviction about my view of things.  There was more confidence within about where I was going and what my life was going to be about.  Of course, it did not turn out that way exactly.  I do yearn sometimes for that clarity of youth for the drive it gave me.  However, stepping back a little I can see the quintessence of my youth did point me in many of the right directions.   

There are many other stories out there that prove the wisdom of a child like the one about the eight year-old boy who prayed about a pine wood derby race within his Cub Scout group.  Having made a roughly finished and plain little racer he was quite surprise to win.  His scout master asked him, “So you prayed to win, huh, Gilbert?”  To which the young man replied, “Oh, no sir. That wouldn’t be fair to ask God to help you beat someone else. I just asked Him to make it so I wouldn’t cry when I lost.”

Another story that circulates concerns the clear wisdom shown by a 6 year-old who witnessed the passing of the family pet at the veterinarian’s.  The animal was dying and in great pain.  Putting him to sleep was the humane choice made by the child’s Mom and Dad.  The parents felt it would be a good life experience for boy to witness the death with them, but were concerned about his perceptions.

The little boy seemed to accept the dog’s transition without any difficulty or confusion. Afterwards there was some talk about why dog’s lives are shorter than humans and the little boy spoke up and said “I know why.  People are born and live a long time so they can learn how to live a good life — like loving everybody all the time and being nice.  Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they don’t have to stay as long.”

Driving one day I remember my son, then four years-old and steeped in anti-drug messages from TV, saying to me “Drugs are bad.  Right Dad?” I responded “Yes they are”.  He then asked “then why are there drug stores?”  I had a most interesting time explaining and have never forgotten how clearly he saw things to have asked his question.   

Writing this causes me to make a firm promise to myself.  I will pay more attention to what children and young adults say.  I will do my best to discern between their jewels of wisdom and their childish chatter.  I will not so quickly discount their perspective simply because I think I know “more” than they do.  More is not always better.  Much is not always best.  Innocence can sometimes offer an unfettered perception of things that can’t be seen through the a corrupted view that wisdom can create. 

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.  Stacia Tauscher

Image by Anne Geddes