Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

A couple months ago I released The Essential Motivation Handbook, along with co-author Eric Hamm of Motivate Thyself, and the response from readers has been strongly positive.

But Eric and I wanted to do more — to add more value for those who bought the ebook. So today we’re happy to announce we’re sending out three bonus podcast videos to everyone who bought the ebook, and the videos will be available to anyone who buys it from now on.

Bonus videos
We’ve created three bonus podcast videos addressing reader questions on motivation, as a thank-you for those who buy the ebook.

In these videos, Eric and I both answer some of the most common motivation questions, including:

• I have great desire to achieve my goals, but often lose steam before getting there. How do I keep the head of steam going?
• Is it possible to force motivation? I feel like the harder I try, the less it works. Sometimes when I give up it finally works.
• My 3 1/2 year old daughter will start pre-school next week. How can I motivate her?
• I hate running but I want to be a runner — how should I overcome the hate?
• How do you motivate people who are really stubborn, close-minded and don’t think their lives can change?

We’re sure you’ll find them useful, as they add a lot of value to what we’ve put in the ebook already.

New site
We’ve put up a new site for the ebook with more info: The Motivation Handbook. It has an interview between Daniel Richard and Eric and I about the ebook, along with lots of other info on the ebook and how to sign up as an affiliate.

I’d like to thank Daniel for the inital setup of the site, as well as Eric for revamping it a bit with his Frugal Theme. We hope you find it useful!

FAQs
I thought I’d share some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), from the site:

Q: Why do I need this many articles on motivation?

A: We all need motivation sometimes. If you’re having motivation problems, this ebook will tackle the issues you’re facing from many different angles.

What makes this ebook really valuable, though, is that it’s more of a reference than a step-by-step instruction guide. We encourage you to read it in bits, opening it and reading an appropriate article whenever you are in need of motivation. As such, there will be times when we repeat ourselves in the book, but that’s OK — you’ll need the same motivational advice at different times. Don’t read it from cover to cover — pick it up at the times when your motivation flags. We’ll be there to help.

Q: What does this ebook add that your sites don’t already have?

A: A more important question is: what’s your time worth? Because honestly, you can get all this information from our blogs, if you are willing to spend the time to dig through hundreds or thousands of articles to find what you’re looking for. If your time is valuable, however, we’ve saved you all that time — we’ve hand-picked the best motivational articles we’ve ever written, and put it in a nice, readable package you can read anywhere, whether you’re online or not.

So if you’re more interested in free, you can get the info without cost on our sites. However, if you don’t have the time to dig through all those old posts, we’ve done it for you. This way you’ll have motivational posts at your fingertips, right when you need it. We think your time is valuable, and we hope you do too.

Q: What format is the ebook in? Does it have DRM or other restrictions?

A: This ebook is in DRM-free PDF format, which means once you buy and download it, you can read it on any device that can read PDFs, email it to yourself, without restrictions. We don’t have plans at this time to offer it in other formats, but you’re free to convert it from PDF to anything you like.

Q: Can I use part of the ebook on my website?

A: Yes! This book is Uncopyrighted, which means we give you permission to reprint parts of the ebook in whatever format you like, whether it’s on your blog, in your book or ebook, in a magazine or newsletter, in a classroom or business. Please do share our content, and if you can give us credit, we’d be most appreciative.

We do appreciate it even more if you pay for a copy of the ebook first, of course.

Buy The Essential Motivation Handbook.

Paracetamol or acetaminophen is the most commonly used over the counter medication that is used to counter pain and fever.
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Paracetamol has to be used in moderation and its overuse or use in conjunction [...]

The humble Banana is a fruit that is tasty, easily available and is great for you!
The banana is one of the first solids that you start for an infant because it is easy to digest and to excrete due to its high fiber content.
The banana is also one of the fruits that [...]

No, this article has nothing to do with the Registan – I just felt like putting it there.

I tried out Dropbox.com based on this article from My Two Dollars:  2GB Free Online Storage From Dropbox.com.  So far it’s interesting (sign up here to get some bonus memory).  I could see it being helpful since Bubelah and I both have our own laptops, though, for files we need to share.   If you want a useful online app, though, check out Evernote (and another review on My Two Dollars, Using Evernote To Declutter My Life. Evernote is fantastic.  So is our new Kodak Zi6, but that’s another post.

MonaVie Sends a Second Cease & Desist:  MonaVie continues to pester Lazy Man about his article on MonaVie. If you have a blog, link to the article – keep it on top of Google rankings, just to prove a point to MonaVie.

Frugal Dad lost his mother last Sunday, and Neal Frankle, who writes at Wealth Pilgrim, wrote A Different Sort of Guest Post.  His mom had been struggling for a while, but finally passed away.  It wasn’t unexpected, but that didn’t make her passing any less sad.

Is it Condition Or Location?:  Kathy weighs in on our housing situation.  We had narrowed it down to a seriously messed up fixer upper at a good price and a wonderfully finished home that was more expensive.  We ended up going with the finished home.  Spending a year ripping up and rebuilding a house wouldn’t be much fun with two toddlers in the house.

A few more good articles:

• Lessons Learned from the Dragons Den (Shark Tank)
• Free Money Finance: 11 Ingredients of Career Success
• 3 Ways to B*tch Slap Fear in the Face and Laugh
• A Guide to Assessing Franchising Opportunities
• Beware managers with free time
• Pros and Cons of Freelancing and Contracting
• Do You Really Know Bill Gates? The Myth of Entrepreneur as Risk-Taker
• How to Convert from Microsoft Money to Quicken
• Mint.com Is Scary

Enjoy the weekend!

Follow me on Twitter!

linklings, dropbox and evernote edition is an original article from the website brip blap.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupe

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

Most productivity blogs and books will teach you how to do more, to get more done, to be more productive.

I want to teach you to do less, to get less done, to be less productive.

And while I’ve written about it before, I think it’s time we take a look at how this can really change your work life, and your life as a whole.

Doing less is not about being lazy (though being lazy is a good start) — it’s about focusing on quality rather than quantity. It’s about getting off the hamster wheel of productivity, so that you can create something great rather than just being busy.

Let’s take a few examples:

• A furniture maker can mass-produce a ton of cheap furniture that will fall apart within a year. Another craftsman might produce way fewer pieces of furniture, but make them beautifully and solidly, so that they’ll last for generations. If he makes them well enough, they might even be sought out and remembered for their great design.
• A programmer can write tens of thousands of lines of code, and produce a lot of software that works. A less productive coder can write a tenth of the lines, perhaps even editing down what she writes so that there’s less code, but they’re better written. This small program might be the most useful thing on many people’s computers, flawless code that just works.
• A writer can churn out lots of words (hundreds of thousands, if not millions), but have his work read by relatively few. Another writer can write a small but powerful blog post or ebook, and have the post be spread by thousands of people.

In each case, the person produced less, but focused on quality. The impact of the smaller work was higher, and thus the time worked was better spent.

I’d argue that by focusing on quality, you could work less and still have a higher impact. I’ve done this in my life — by cutting back on my work hours, I actually get less done but have a higher impact.

I should note: this takes courage, to do less. You have to shed all the old ideas of working harder and working more and being more productive. You have to forget about what others thing about your work habits, and instead think about the impact the work has on the world and your life. You have to change the way you do things, and that’s never easy.

But it’s worth the effort.

Here are some ways this philosophy can change your life and work:

1. Less hectic, busy schedule, less stress, more peace. Doing less leaves free to schedule less, leave more space in your schedule, work at a more human pace.
2. More ability to focus, to find Flow, to work in the moment. When you are doing too much, you are constantly switching from one task to another, constantly interrupted, constantly distracted. Do less, clear away distractions, single-task.
3. Work has more impact and spreads further and wider. When you do too much, your work is spread thinner, you have lower quality, and people won’t spread your work or give you awards for low-quality work.
4. More pride in your work, which feels good. Feels awesome, actually, to create something worth putting your name on.
5. People appreciate higher quality. Customers rave. Readers enthuse. Reviewers glow. Bosses promote.
6. More time for family and loved ones. Not a small benefit. Be sure that if you do less, you use the saved time for something important. Like quiet time for the ones you love.
7. More time for other things you enjoy. I use my time for exercise, or reading, and of course my family.
8. Free yourself up to create amazing things. Creating is hard to do when you’re busy and distracted. By doing less, you can create something great.

How to Do Less

I almost didn’t include this section, as to me it seems obvious: you just … do less. But I realize it’s not obvious to everyone, so I’ll share a few tips (many are familiar to long-time readers):

• Slowly cut back on non-essential commitments.
• Have fewer meetings.
• Say no to requests, as much as possible, so you can focus on doing something great.
• Cut out distractions, especially the Internet.
• Single-task and focus.
• Churn out a shitty first draft, then edit.
• Edit some more. Make it beautiful and minimal.
• Make it something you will be proud to claim credit for.
• When you find yourself doing busy-work, stop, put it off, find ways to cut that out of your life.
• Whatever blocks you from doing your great work, kill it.
• Set limits on how many things you do each day.
• Focus on the most important tasks first, before you get distracted.
• Set limits on your work hours.

It won’t happen overnight. Change gradually, but surely.

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.” - E.F. Schumacker

—
In other news:

• As I announced on Twitter yesterday, I’m moving to San Francisco. Read about why.
• Three recent posts from mnmlist.com: Clutter is procrastination; Buying is not the solution; Revolt: get free from the tyranny of the news & the need to stay updated.
• My post on Write To Done: Create something new in the world.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen.

Are you anxious at times? I am. Let’s face it, there’s plenty of anxiety to go around: lay-offs, relationship crises, pandemics, violence – and that’s just for starters.

Actually, anxiety is a natural alarm system that keeps us safe and productive. But it can become a chronic mindset. When that happens, it can deaden joy and stifle creativity.

How to tackle anxiety
In my life it’s not so much the big-ticket items like the current influenza or the economic meltdown that make me anxious, it’s the fact that I tend to over-commit myself. The result is that I’m always a bit behind schedule. Anyone else feel like that?

One way to deal with overload is to pare down commitments, as Leo Babauta describes in his beautiful post, How to be less busy in a busy, busy world. Another way is to change our ingrained thought patterns and emotional responses.

Luckily there are some wonderful techniques that can help us to stay relaxed, focused, grounded, and cheerful – even under pressure. After all, anxiety is not produced by something external. It’s an internal response to stress. We can train the mind to respond in a more skillful way.

I want to share with you how I stay reasonably sane, grounded, and creative in the midst of a full life. But first let’s take a closer look at anxiety.

Fight-flight-freeze: three responses to anxiety
Anxiety is a low-grade fear. It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of one’s anxiety. That’s because anxiety is pervasive, whereas fear has a clear target.

We are hardwired to respond in three different ways when faced with danger: fight, flight, or freeze.

Imagine that you are hiking in a National Park. Suddenly you spot a bear. Faced with immediate danger, you instinctively choose one of three options: you either try to scare off the bear by making yourself look big, or by shouting (that’s the ‘fight’ response). Or you immediately turn and run to safety (that’s the flight response). Or you stand very still in the hope that the bear won’t notice you (that’s the ‘freeze’ response).

Let’s look at how these responses play out in everyday life:

1. Fight: When we’re anxious, we tend to be irritable. This is the ‘fight’ response. Because anxiety is pervasive and doesn’t have a clear target, we tend to snap at those around us.

2. Flight: Sometimes we try to avoid what makes us anxious. People who suffer from severe anxiety even avoid stepping outside their home.

3. Freeze: The freeze response produces procrastination and stage fright. I certainly know about these two. You too?

Note that I’m talking about ordinary anxiety, and not about anxiety disorders. If you suffer from panic attacks or phobias, read this useful article, or get professional help.

Anxiety is an emotion that sends our mind into the future. After all, nobody is anxious about the past, right? As human beings we tend to think in stories that are like mind-movies. Anxious mind-movies usually have a ‘what if?’ scenario.

So what winds us up into anxiety are particular thought patterns and stories. Take a look at the following list and see if any points seem familiar:

1. Self-doubts: Do you doubt your ability? Do you think you haven’t got what it takes, in order to succeed?

2. Wanting Control of the future: Do you want to want to control what happens in future? The truth is that even if we lay great plans, the unexpected can happen. And life has inescapable tides: we age and finally die.

3. High self-expectations: Sometimes we become our own slave-driver. I must admit, that’s definitely a weakness of mine. It’s good to step back at times and check out whether our expectations are realistic – and kindly.

4. Fear of failure: Are you afraid to fail? The truth is that all learning entails failure. Prof. Tal Ben-Shahar, an exponent of the Positive Psychology movement says, “Learn to fail, or fail to learn.”

5. Not being present: This is a key factor of anxiety. When our thoughts dwell on the future, and we stop being truly present, that’s when we can become anxious.

As you can see in the list above, all these internal factors are mental habits that we can change in order to alleviate and transform anxiety. And it’s the last one – being present – that’s the key to inspiration.

Inspiration lives in the present
There is an amazing short video with Brother David Steindle-Rast – a Christian monk. As a boy, he experienced the last years of World War II in Germany. He tells of great hardships: never knowing where the next meal would come from, having to queue for hours for a small pitcher of water, and seeing bombs fall all around him.

Would you be anxious in a situation like this?

Surprisingly, Brother David wasn’t anxious – his experience was completely the opposite: it was one of the happiest times in his life! How could that be? His explanation is quite simple. Because there seemed no possibility of survival and no hope for the future, all he could do was to be in the present moment. This created a deep sense of happiness – in the midst of all that suffering.

Moments of inspiration – like watching the video of Brother David – remind us of our life purpose. We feel uplifted, excited, and yet grounded. I think the reason why moments of inspiration touch us so keenly, is because they remind us of our deepest aspirations.

Sometimes we confuse aspirations with personal goals, but they are completely different. Aspirations are the answer to the question: “What do I want to give the world?” Whereas personal goals are the answer to the question, “What do I want the world to give me?”

Four ways to transform anxiety into inspiration
Here are four ways you can start to transform anxiety into inspiration:

1. Simplify your life: The best guide I have seen so far, is Leo Babauta’s lovely new ebook The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life. He takes you right through the necessary steps to simplify your life. It doesn’t happen overnight, but can definitely decrease anxiety in the long run.

2. Write everything down: Holding too many ideas and plans in one’s head can cause anxiety. A very simple remedy is to record all your ideas, dates, and schedules so that you free up your memory. Buy a simple notebook that you carry with you, or invest in a smart phone that can store appointments and idea.

3. Learn to relax: The anxious body is tense and needs rest and relaxation. There is a good relaxation and sleep hypnosis recording, created by Jon Rhodes. It’s free and you can find it here

4. Practice meditation: If you really want to change the mental habits that keep you ensnared in anxiety, you’ll find meditation a real help.

I know it can be daunting to learn to meditate. And busy people sometimes find it difficult to set time aside to practice meditation. I’ve come up with an easy way to get into meditation. I call it the Three-Breaths meditation. You can do it in one minute or less. It’s a natural way to meditate and doesn’t require you to learn complicated techniques. I’ve created a short video on how to do it. You can watch it here.

The Three-Breaths Meditation entails taking a few moments each day in order to pay tender regard to three breaths as they flow in and out of your body. For best results, keep upright posture so that your body and mind are well balanced. A thoughts come and go, observe them with soft attention and bring your focus gently back to your breath. I suggest practicing this easy micro-meditation a few times during the day. You’ll notice that it brings you right back home to the present moment.

Of course there’s a lot to be said about turning anxiety into inspiration – that’s why I run a Virtual Zen Retreat focused on how to do it. But I hope that you can find something in this post that helps you to start moving away anxiety and towards inspiration.

Learning to guide our mind away from unskillful emotions, like anxiety, fear or anger, and towards kindness and cheerfulness, is a wonderful way to enhance our life and bring about happiness.

If there’s one thing you take away from this post, I hope it’s that ease and inspiration come from experiencing the present moment.
Like. Now.

Read more from Mary at her blog, Goodlife Zen. Check out her Virtual Zen Retreat How to Transform Anxiety into Inspiration.

Looking for ways to get even with somebody? Get rid of those sleazy revenge tactics everyone uses. If you want to have revenge, make that person pay.

Now, making bombs isn’t rocket science. There are those innocent looking items around your house that you can use to create explosives. These bombs when made correctly with the right amount of chemicals can be as dangerous as those high powered bombs you see on television.

Scare your enemies with a loud bang or a smoke bomb. Your purpose shouldn’t be to hurt them, but to frighten or cause damage on their properties. Seeing them scared like a child and spend money on repairs are pretty good ways of getting even.

Warning

• Possession and creating homemade bombs are illegal to most places.
• Revenge with the use of these dangerous items means serious consequences. If you plan on inflicting great harm on another person, think of how that will affect you and your loved ones when you get apprehended by the authorities. Is it worth all the trouble?
• You have to be very careful when experimenting with chemicals. A substance as simple as a dish soap can be used to make a bomb that can seriously hurt or even kill someone.
• When you work with chemicals, it’s important for you to at least know some of the basic principles in chemistry.
• Experimenting with chemicals are dangerous. Do these methods at your own risk.

With all of those things said, Here are the dirty tricks.

Toilet Cleaner Bomb

Things You’ll Need:

• Toilet cleaner solution
• Tin foils
• Bottle

Steps:

1. Make 2 dozens of balls from tin foils that’s about the size of a quarter.
2. Put them inside the bottle.
3. Fill the bottle about 2 inches of toilet cleaner.
4. Cover the bottle.
5. Shake and throw the bottle.

Bottle Bomb

Things You’ll Need:

• A soda bottle
• gasoline
• cloth
• chlorine tablet

Steps:

1. Wash a soda bottle.
2. Put gasoline into the bottle until it’s half full.
3. Stuff it with cloth and chlorine tablet.
4. When you throw the bottle, the gasoline and chlorine would mix and you know what will happen next.

Tennis Ball Bomb

Things You’ll Need:

• Tennis Ball
• Lots of matches
• Knife
• Duct tape

Steps:

1. Create a small hole on the tennis ball.
2. Remove the match heads.
3. Fill the tennis ball with the match heads. Make sure that the match heads are packed tightly inside
4. Cover the hole with a duct tape.
5. Throw the tennis ball and it’ll create an explosion loud enough to scare your victim.

Fertilizer Bomb

Things You’ll Need:

• Fertilizer, preferably of the chemical kind like the green thumb.
• Newspaper
• Cotton
• Diesel Fuel

Steps:

1. Make a newspaper pouch.
2. Put some fertilizer in the pouch.
3. Place cotton on top of the fertilizer.
4. Wet the cotton with diesel fuel.
5. light the cotton with a match stick.
6. Stay as far away as possible.
7. This kind of bomb can blow out to about 500 square feet. Make sure that you’re in a very big area when doing this.

Paint Bomb

Things You’ll Need:

• Metal paint can that has a re-fastenable lid
• Paint
• Dry ice

Steps:

1. Choose a color that you like. Pink would be girly, but a good one if you’re planning to use this on your ex-boyfriend. Red would be totally gruesome awesome.
2. Fill the used can with your desired paint.
3. Put dry ice inside the can.
4. Cover the top.
5. Wait and see how your victim shouts and screams out of nervousness and irritation. It’s gonna be a mess.

Fire Bomb

Things You’ll Need:

• Gasoline
• Bottle
• Cloth
• Oil
• Roofing tar

Steps:

1. Fill the bottle with gasoline.
2. Put some oil and roofing tar.
3. Stuffed the bottle with cloth.
4. Roll or throw the bottle to make it explode.

Tip:

You can also use melted wax instead of a roofing tar.

Smoke Bomb

Though this bomb doesn’t cause an explosion, your victim will surely get irritated with the smoke.

Things You’ll Need:

• Granulated Sugar
• Salt peter (Potassium Nitrate)
• Stove
• Pan
• Match stick

Steps:

1. Melt the sugar and salt peter under low heat.
2. Let it sit for a while and wait until it turns solid.
3. Take it outside or in your target area.
4. Put a lighted match on your compound.
5. You’ll see that it’ll turn black and emit smoke.
6. You can also just directly light up your compound, but it’ll burn quickly and create a big flame.

Bombs are dangerous things. If you’re a pyromaniac, the things listed above are probably boring for you, but nevertheless, bombs are bombs. They’re not meant to be played with or experimented on. Only use these bombs to scare, but not to hurt others. Remember, there are many other ways to get even with somebody. These may be violent and drastic measures, but it’s all in good fun!

Stomach ailments are beyond uncomfortable at time: they can be debilitating.
It is a fact that tear gas works not only by irritating the eyes, but by causing nausea. It can stop if you could.
So it is in a great number of people’s interest to find ways to stop feeling like this.
The [...]

How is this for a dream job? Boring work, lots of travel to uninteresting box buildings located in bland office parks, pay that’s not competitive, poor benefits, long hours and uncomfortable, privacy-obliterating cubicles.  Sounds awful, doesn’t it?  Piling on further, though, let’s throw in a few broken promises for promotions and raises.  Top it all off with a boss who dislikes you.  He doesn’t invite you in his office, he doesn’t ask you to meetings and routinely complains about your work to you and your co-workers.  I can’t imagine a scenario that would be much more dehumanizing, but what’s truly depressing about it is how so many people endure this office-of-horrors for weeks, months or years without trying to change it.

I’m not talking about leaving corporate life for a blissful career as a social media guru or cheerful organic tomato farmer. I’m not talking about stalking through the cube farm with an AK as a solution, either.  I see people lower their heads and return glumly to work after being dismissed, humiliated and almost broken every day.  I tend to get a lot of miserable employees complaining to me about their situations (since I’m not an employee, I’m “safe” to talk to).  When the picture gets as grim as described above, the conversation almost always plays out like one of those dream sequences in which you watch the monster running towards you, but your feet remain planted in concrete – something terrible is coming, but it’s inescapable:

Droopy: “I hate my job, I hate everything about it.”
Me: “Too bad.  You can’t transfer or anything like that?”
Droopy:  “No, I’d need help from my boss.”
Me: “Well, life is short and it’s not worth putting up with a situation like this forever.  Maybe you should think about quitting.”
Droopy: “No!  The economy is terrible!  Plus I have a mortgage/2.3 kids/credit card debt/a new car payment/etc.”
Me: “Yeah, but since you’ve been looking for a new job for a while, you’re bound to have some leads…”
Droopy: “I’ve been MEANING to start looking, but I’m just so busy – plus it’s hard to interview, my resume is outdated, I have this big project here…”
Me: “You hate your job, your boss hates you, you have no future and in all likelihood you’ll be the first head on a platter when the layoffs come… and you aren’t actively looking for a new job?”
Droopy: “But nobody’s hiring!”
Me: “Nobody’s breaking into your home at night while you’re watching American Idol and offering you a job, if that’s what you mean.”

Why is it that people wait for a good time to look for new work? Why, if you were in a terrible job like the one I’ve described above, would you worry about how “difficult” it might be to sneak away for an interview?  Why would you give a second’s thought to trying to stick it out?

I suppose an optimistic person might hope for their boss to quit and Sandra Bullock to swoop in and become the chirpy, best-buddy boss in a romantic comedy. Yep.  That happens almost everyday, according to the movies.  When I see employees stuck in a dead end job, I feel badly.  I try to help by offering advice or encouragement.  When I see the same employee sit on their hands month after month without looking for a new job – but talking on the phone about last night’s episode of CSI – I want to knock the stupid out of them.

If you aren’t keeping a What-I-Done-Did file, start now.  Update your resume.  Sign up for LinkedIn.  Get on Twitter (and yes, I’m getting as tired as everyone else of Twitter but hey, if you can’t beat ‘em…).  And most importantly, start looking!  One of the worst feelings you can have related to your career is a sense of powerlessness – a lack of choice.  If nothing else, a job search gives you back a tiny bit of control and forcefeeds a drop of hope into your system.

We all know Milton from Office Space. We all laugh at him, but sit back and look in the mirror.  If you skip washing your hair for a few days, dress like a doofus and mumble a bit, could you fit the part?  If so, go grab that red stapler and flee for the hills as soon as you can.

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time to read the writing on the wall is an original article from the website brip blap.

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” - Pablo Picasso

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

Sometimes I lounge lazily in bed, in the middle of the day, with a couple of my kids and just abandon my worldly concerns, and just play.

Or I’ll sit and just watch them play, pretending they’re superheros or princesses or playing house or shooting each other with stick guns.

It never fails to leave me with a sense of wonder, of pure joy, of a return to innocence and a simpler time.

As grown ups, we’ve lost this childlike sense of life. And that’s actually a sad thing.

It’s not just about happiness and innocence either — being more childlike also helps us to be more creative, more imaginative, more innovative and open to worlds of possibilities.

Consider: as children, we are naturally imaginative, curious, able to play without a worry in our minds. Some qualities of young children that happen naturally:

• they live in the present
• they have no concerns about money, productivity, or being cool
• there are no limits to their imagination, except what they’ve been exposed to
• they play and lose themselves in play
• they create with abandon
• they are endlessly curious, and ask questions … without end
• they love showing off to their parents

We could learn a lot from children. Sure, they have qualities we might not want, but in my eyes, they are already perfect. We don’t need to mold them into people, we need to be more like them.

We lose this childlike nature, the nature we’re born with, because of society — it has certain institutions and systems in place that beat childishness out of us, so we can be more productive citizens and consumers. I think it’s unfortunate.

We shouldn’t abandon all responsibilities, but we can learn a lot from children and be more like them in some ways.

How to be childlike
We must first acknowledge that no change is instantaneous, that any change worth keeping takes time. But you can start today.

Start by deciding to abandon caution and to give this a try. Start by identifying the qualities of children you’d like to emulate: curiosity, play, living in the moment, abandoning worries, imagination, creativity, pure joy.

Observe children. Watch how they play, how they live, how they create, how they ask questions. Sure, sometimes they do dumb things like throw tantrums, but even in that you can see their pure abandonment of everything but what is happening to them right now. Watch and learn.

Play with children. If you have some of your own, great. If not, play with children of friends and family. Lose yourself in the play. Be a dinosaur, or a gorilla, or a villain. Have a joyous time. Make them squeal in delight, and feel free to do the same yourself.

Talk with children. Ask them questions. Answer theirs. Don’t talk down to them with baby talk, but don’t be too grownup either.

Play by yourself. Go outside and run around, jump, slide, kick a ball around, pretend. Forget about who might be watching.

Create like a child. Don’t be constrained with what people expect, what you’re used to. Be wild and have fun. Imagine that things can be different, that there are no limitations, and see what happens. Most of your childlike drawings will be tossed in the trash, but some might be put up on the fridge.

Be curious like a child. Look at things with a child’s eye, and ask questions you’ve never asked before, explore with a beginner’s mind. Don’t be afraid to ask why, and what if, and why not?

Live in the moment. Forget about all you have to do. Forget about what happened yesterday, or that conversation you had. Forget about that meeting that’s coming up, or those deadlines. Just do, and be.

See the world with new eyes. It is a wondrous place, a miracle happening every second, a source of immense fascination that can knock you on your ass if you let it. You are a miracle, and every moment you have is a gift. What will you do with that gift?

And last, if you have children, let them be childlike. Stop trying to make them grow up. Stop trying to shape them, criticize them, make them your own piece of clay, as Marvin Gaye said. Let them be, and enjoy the beautiful way they already are.

“Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they’re looking for ideas.” - Paula Poundstone