When Did We Stop Looking at Life With Wonder?

I remember when my son was little, watching the wonder in his eyes.

Everything was interesting. Everything held possibility.

There was a brightness to the way he looked at the world; a mixture of curiosity, excitement and just enough mischief to make me wonder what he was going to do next.

Nothing had told him to be afraid yet.

He hadn’t learned to expect disappointment. He wasn’t carrying regret or replaying the opportunities he had missed. He wasn’t questioning whether he was good enough, capable enough or brave enough.

He simply believed there was more to discover.

And I can’t help but notice how much that changes as we grow older.

I look around now and sometimes see something very different in people’s eyes.

I see exhaustion.

I see regret.

I see missed opportunities, disappointment and defeat.

I see people who once had big ideas slowly convincing themselves to be realistic. People who have been knocked back so many times they’ve stopped stepping forward. People who are surviving their lives rather than feeling genuinely excited to live them.

Somewhere along the way, many of us lose our sense of wonder.

But when does that happen?

Is it one enormous heartbreak, or hundreds of tiny ones?

Is it the job we didn’t get? The relationship that ended? The business that struggled? The person who made us feel foolish for dreaming too loudly?

Or does it happen more quietly?

Perhaps we stop listening to ourselves because other people’s voices become louder. We start measuring our lives against timelines we never consciously chose. We become so focused on being responsible, productive and successful that we forget to remain curious.

We learn to protect ourselves.

And sometimes that protection looks like not trying.

If we don’t hope for too much, perhaps we won’t be disappointed. If we don’t take the chance, we can’t fail. If we stay exactly where we are, nothing else can be taken from us.

But nothing new can find us there either.

Maybe we don’t lose our wonder completely. Maybe it becomes buried beneath responsibility, heartbreak, comparison and all the things we thought our lives would look like by now.

Perhaps it is still there, waiting for us to notice it again.

Because every now and then, it returns.

It appears in a conversation that makes you feel understood. In the first glimpse of the ocean after a long week. In a ridiculous idea that you can’t stop thinking about. In the moment you decide to try something new, even though you have absolutely no idea whether it will work.

Wonder doesn’t require us to ignore everything we have been through. It doesn’t ask us to pretend life hasn’t hurt.

It asks us to believe that pain is not the only thing still waiting for us.

There might also be joy.

There might be love we haven’t experienced, places we haven’t seen, work that matters to us and versions of ourselves we haven’t met yet.

Perhaps the goal isn’t to return to who we were before life happened.

We know too much for that now.

Perhaps it is to carry what we have learned without allowing it to take away our capacity to hope. To remain open, even after we have had reasons to close. To look towards what is coming with a little less fear, and maybe even a hint of mischief.

I still think about the wonder I saw in my son’s eyes.

Maybe children don’t possess something we eventually lose.

Maybe they simply remind us of something we have forgotten:

The world is not finished surprising us.

And neither are we.