Two lessons that my daughter taught me
Two lessons that my daughter taught me
A child is innocent… uncorrupted and honest! And the biggest casualty of our journey to adulthood is the loss of this innocence… the purity!
Let me relate two small incidents that my daughter and I shared where my daughter said what was obvious to her… things that I had forgotten!
1. I once had a beautiful watch that I would habitually leave on my night stand. There were usually no outsiders in our house and it never occurred to me that it could be stolen. One day, we had some plumbing and electrical work in the house and several works-men apparently moved around, needless-to-say, I lost the watch. Once back home, I was searching for it and my daughter, then 7, asked me what I was doing. When I told her that my watch may have been “taken” by those that were fixing the plumbing and electrical issues, she immediately said: “It could not have been them”. I asked why not and she said, “Because they are not supposed to!”
2. On another occasion, we were playing around and she wanted to move something and asked me if she could. I playfully said, “Well, go for it! No one is looking”. She responded: “But I am!”. She was 9 then.
A thief commits a crime because he feels that ‘no one is watching’. He knows that he is ‘not supposed to’! But it is alright as long as no body knows. He can most definitely be branded, for theft is a punishable crime.
How many crimes do each one of us commit every day for ‘no one is watching’? I am not talking only about the punishable crimes like theft and adultery and killing! I am talking of the innumerable small wrong-doings that we would not do if only we knew someone was watching.
We have corrupted our world that is contained in a pure universe! You and I, stand guilty for our thoughtless, unashamed contamination of what was given pure and clean to us. We pretend like we are the holy ones living in a bad world, where, in reality, each one of us is as tainted as anyone else.
My daughter taught me that there are things that you simply should not do for you are “not supposed to”. She taught me that there is never a time when “no one is watching”.
What says your conscience?
