It's Midnight for Cinderella. Why Are We No Longer Amazed?

Have you ever felt jaded? You know, that heaviness that takes over every cell in your body and makes you believe that nothing can surprise or fascinate you anymore? You then feel growing pressure to find something extraordinary to do or tell to try to convince yourself that your life is as exciting as a fairy tale…

You have everything to be happy, but you know deep down that something essential is missing.

When you were little

I'm certain you'll never forget the feeling of joy and excitement that overwhelmed you as Christmas or your birthday approached, the butterflies you had in your legs after the first big snowfall, the spontaneous laughter that took possession of your belly when someone farted without restraint right next to you.

Yet you're still the same person; what has changed that there are now so many conditions for you to be amazed by life?

What if I put you on the trail to find what you're looking for?

The "virtues" of stimulation

The world is evolving at breakneck speed.

Stimulation is becoming the next religion of our modern societies. The performance and competition criteria that support our way of life push us to go ever faster, to do more with less.

We increasingly substitute the body's need to move by automating our movements: automatic doors, escalators, cleaning robots, elevators, automatic sinks and even toilets! All these little extras that are supposed to make life easier end up harming us by taking away our taste for effort.

Boredom; the most destructive disease of the modern world

We live in a cushioned world. We no longer have to hunt or cultivate the land to survive. We can practice a profession without putting too much effort into it and live in comfort that would have made our ancestors, who struggled to survive, green with envy.

And to support this system that's cracking everywhere, we encourage our children to exceed developmental curves, we put screens in their hands before they can walk so they become leaders. In reality, we make them heroes...of conformism!

And you, the adult, how do you accompany them in this fight against boredom? You who have forgotten how to welcome those essential moments when there's nothing on the schedule. Lacking imagination, you're content to do what your social role dictates, or copy influencers so as not to draw too much attention to yourself. And the most unfortunate thing is that you trivialize the situation by convincing yourself that everyone does it.

It's the children who pay the price

But if we look more closely at the consequences of this ignorance, we have the right to question the real value of progress.

Is it acceptable that so many children suffer a behavioral disorder diagnosis? That medication becomes the solution to all learning disorders? That more and more children under 10 experience depression and talk about suicide?

Time to change things

A wise person said: "We spend the first 2 years of a human being's life teaching them how to talk and walk, then we spend the rest of their life telling them to sit down and be quiet."

Today's children are at an impasse. On one hand, they are overstimulated; exposed to realities that overwhelm them and which they shouldn't be confronted with, then on the other, we overprotect them and deprive them of experiences that would be beneficial to their development.

We prepare our children for this world by stimulating them, and imposing OUR performance criteria on them, too eager to make them machines to contribute to social delirium.

We put technological objects in their hands hoping to have a little respite, but in truth we feed this illusion that they can get everything right away.

We prefer to say yes to their slightest whims, because it's easier to give in to social pressure than to give up certain elements of this comfort by asking ourselves if it's really necessary in our lives.

Accustomed to having their slightest desires fulfilled, our children end up taking everything they want for granted, they need increasingly powerful stimuli to feel a little more alive. How many will emerge bruised from this mad race for thrills?

We're so eager to teach children to dream: to get them to want to do everything they wish to accomplish, that we forget to teach them through discipline and effort to truly want to do, through inner strength, what they are doing.

It's time we open our eyes and start changing things.

Discovering beauty means understanding the true value of things

This brings me to question you about the meaning of life.

Have you ever wondered: what brings value to our experiences?

Will we one day understand the value of rarity? Certainly, life inevitably pushes us there. We appreciate a person or thing at its true value when it leaves us or when we lose it. But could it be otherwise? Could we discover the value of something without this link of possession or emotional dependence?

Could we rediscover what motivates learning? Of course! When we expand our world of possibilities, we suddenly feel inhabited by superpowers. Our cells are in turmoil, we feel alive and confident about the future. But why in such a vast world where information circulates so quickly, do we often feel overwhelmed, surpassed and too rarely in our place?

Could we relearn to appreciate beauty?

Beauty triggers an internal state of curiosity that pushes us to want to better know what surrounds us. From the appreciation of beauty flows our conception of life.

The ancient Greeks said that beauty is the expression of good and truth. The appreciation of beauty should therefore bring us back to the essential.

But like rarity, discovery and learning, what determines beauty must come from an inner feeling. Otherwise it becomes just as superficial as all the other values we try to instill in children.

How to get out of it?

You'll be happy to learn that the loss of wonder is reversible. You can make a series of simple gestures to maintain wonder in the hearts of our children, young and old (yes, this includes your little self, because you can't transmit what you don't cultivate yourself!):

• By reducing the importance of objects in your life, while replacing them with more commitment to what you already possess and more simplicity in your life choices;

• By decreasing the use of technological objects, substituting their use with family time;

• By minimizing time spent in front of video games to replace it with sports and outdoor activities;

• By breaking stimuli and over-scheduling to grant yourself more free moments, moments of silence and spontaneous activities.

But above all, you must learn to respect your rhythm and tolerate mystery. Providing an answer to every question is the best way to kill the natural curiosity that is in each of us.

Wonder is a capacity that children naturally have within them, but we must stop anticipating their needs so that this engine stays alive in them. As an adult, you must above all give yourself the right to learn from them, while serving as their guide.

Nature has all the answers

The most beautiful teaching that nature can never offer us is that everything of value takes time to build. The beauty that pushes us to wonder resides in this force that produces life.

Nature is full of lessons, it's the best guide for relearning to appreciate simple things.

It teaches us that struggle is something contextual and temporary.

It teaches us that beauty is a matter of consciousness and perception.

It shows us that change is the only force that is permanent.

We need to find ourselves in nature as often as possible to make our lives a constant wonder.

Nature is a real laboratory of life's principles. Being in its midst is giving ourselves the opportunity to discover the sequence of events that makes each moment a unique experience.

We must learn to listen to discover the potential of all human experiences. Each moment offers an opportunity to marvel even if our carriage sometimes turns into a pumpkin.

We just need to stop asking why things happen and appreciate the opportunities that life offers us to evolve.