My wife brought the most amazing gift into our lives last Sunday. Our first child, Marley, was born. She is so innocent and pure, and all we can do is just love her and stare at her all day long.
So what is it about babies that makes us become so soft and emotional? Maybe it’s their lack of experience and, therefore, their lack of judgment that makes them so enticing. Think about it. A baby doesn’t care if you are ugly or beautiful. They don’t care much about anything other than getting fed, staying warm and staying out of pain.
Every experience a baby has is basically a new one. Maybe the most desirable characteristic about babies is that they don’t hold on to grudges, tension or stress. Their minds are so pure that they don’t have the ability or the experiences to care much about long-term memory. They just live for the moment.
If adults could do that, then we would get rid of a lot of the junk that fills our brains.
I guess this is why adults like to be around babies and puppies, because we would love to be more like them. The problem is that we have a ton of experiences lodged in our brains giving us certain feelings and patterns of behavior.
It’s a great thing that we have memories. In fact, it’s a survival tactic, but there is certainly a desirable way about babies.
So, how can we incorporate some of these qualities into our complex lives? I don’t know the answer to this question, but I do know that hanging around babies, puppies and people who live more in the moment helps us realize how we can improve our own lives.
— Dr. Bob Wilcher is a chiropractor and personal trainer in Santa Barbara. He owns Killer B Fitness, a personal and group training studio also located in Santa Barbara. Contact Wilcher at www.killerbfitness.com or 805.448.2222.