Take a nice couple of deep breaths in your own rhythm,
Please.
Come with me today on a journey to the exuberance of youth.
Think of a time when you were perhaps younger than you are now,
Even your teen years or early teens.
Think of a young animal,
Puppy dog or a kitten,
Young bird.
Think of anything in the bloom of its youth,
Past babyhood,
But just emerging.
Whether it's discovering something new,
Whether it's moving in a new way to learn more about your body,
Whether it's yelling at the top of your lungs just because you can.
And then if you're hanging out with friends,
More yelling and more wrestling and more running.
Imagine you're running over a field now,
Running as fast as you can and you're laughing,
Jumping,
Playing,
Maybe falling occasionally.
Without a care in the world,
With abandon,
Just like a puppy or a kitten.
And what is that?
What is that extraordinary exuberance?
It's a celebration,
It's discovery,
It's invention,
It's many,
Many things.
It's life and its fullest expression of joy and curiosity.
Feel the exuberance of youth,
Your own in the past or someone else's or imagined.
And the relentless boundary testing,
Whether it's a teenager or an animal.
You'll just strive to do more,
See more,
Learn more,
Have more fun,
Just more.
Endless seemingly,
An endless summer followed by an endless summer.
Feel the quality of that exuberance,
That letting go,
That large arc of ecstasy and expectation.
The energy that it renews and generates in others around you.
The challenges it gives to others around you sometimes.
But basically,
Letting loose,
Letting go and seeing what happens.
This is how we learn as human beings,
Particularly as young people.
And somehow,
Sometimes for some of us,
It fades over time and we may forget our own experience of exuberance or others.
Or maybe we never had that.
And we think that learning is done in a more modified,
More proper way.
But perhaps it would be good to bring the exuberance of youth back into our daily lives.
Just for a moment,
In discovery,
In research,
In a relationship and looking at the world around us and understanding ourselves,
That unrelenting enthusiasm that ceases this motivation,
Feels the vibration and tone of it now.
For it comes from a deeper place than just the human psyche.
It's an essential element of human consciousness and expression.
Celebration,
Inquiry,
Experimentation,
Tumbling over,
Falling over,
Failing,
Apologizing,
Moving on,
Learning,
Learning,
Learning.
Feel it.
Realize you still have that possibility within you.
Imagine that right at this moment,
Millions upon millions of young creatures,
Human and otherwise,
Are being exuberant,
Are celebrating,
Are testing limits,
Are screaming their lungs out,
Are playing.
Feel the beauty of it underneath the wisdom of it.
And you can participate in that stream anytime you want.
Imagine how blessed we are by our young,
As all species are.
Feel the exuberance of youth,
Pervading all of you and across the planet.
And when you're ready,
Give thanks,
Come back into the room and have a wonderful day.
