A Lesson About Courage

小丫：“从婴儿到少年，从少年到青年……我们在不断成长，同时我们也在不断失去。知识在增长，阅历在增加，我们越来越有城府，越来越顾虑重重，越来越迷失自我。因为经验，我们戴上了生活的虚假面具；因为恐惧，我们把真实的自我挡在了幕后；因为失败，我们丧失了追求成功的勇气。成长，让我们背上了精神的枷锁。仔细品味下文，解放出那个潜藏在你内心的被绑缚了的‘小男孩’。”

One afternoon, many years ago, I went to pick up my mother from work. I got there a little early so I parked the car by the curb, across the street from where she worked, and waited for her.

As I looked outside the car window to my right, there was a small park where I saw a little boy, around one and a half to two years old, running freely on the grass as his mother watched from a short distance. The boy had a big smile on his face as if he had just been set free from some sort of prison. The boy would then fall to the grass, get up, and without hesitation or without looking back at his mother, run as fast as he could, again, still with a smile on his face, as if nothing had happened.

多年前的一个下午，我驱车去接母亲下班。因为我到得稍微有点早，就把车子停靠在了母亲单位对面的路边上，等候母亲。

我透过车子的右窗，看见一个小小的公园，公园里有个小男孩，约摸一岁半到两岁的样子，在草地上自由地跑来跑去，他妈妈就在不远处看着他。小男孩笑得很开心，好像刚从牢笼里释放出来似的。他摔倒了，爬起来，毫不犹豫，也不回头看看妈妈，接着就跑啊跑，然后再摔倒，再爬起来，笑容始终挂在脸上，仿佛什么事都没发生似的。

However, with kids (especially at an early age), when they fall down, they don't perceive their falling down as failure, but instead, they treat it as a learning experience (as just another result/outcome). They feel compelled to try and try again until they succeed. (The answer must be...they have not associated "falling down" with the word "failure" yet, thus they don't know how to feel the state which accompanies failure. As a result, they are not disempowered in any way. Plus, they probably think to themselves that it's perfectly okay to fall down, that it's not wrong to do so. In other words, they give themselves permission to make mistakes, subconsciously. Thus they remain empowered.）

While I was touched by the boy's persistence, I was equally touched by the manner in which he ran. With each attempt, he looked so confident...so natural. No signs of fear, nervousness, or of being discouraged — as if he didn't give a care about the world around him.

然而，孩子们却不这样，尤其是幼童，当他们摔倒的时候，他们并不把摔倒视为失败；相反，他们把它看作是学习经验的过程，是另外的成就或结果。他们觉得必须尝试，再尝试，直到成功。其实，问题的答案就在于孩子并没有把“摔倒”与“失败”联系起来，所以他们感受不到失败的滋味，也不会因此而泄气。或许他们还觉得摔倒完全没有关系，要是不摔倒才不合理呢。换句话说，他们在潜意识中允许自己犯错误，这样，他们就总保持着干劲。

小男孩的毅力感动了我，同样，他奔跑的那种劲头也感动了我。每一次尝试，他都看起来那么的信心十足，那么的自然自如，没有一点恐惧、紧张、气馁的迹象，好像根本不把周围的世界放在眼里似的。

His only aim was to run freely and to do it as effectively as he could. He was just being a child — just being himself—being completely in the moment. He was not looking for approval or was not worrying about whether someone was watching or not. He wasn't concerned about being judged. He didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that maybe someone would see him fall (as there were others in the park aside from him and his mother) and that it would be embarrassing if he did fall. No, all that mattered to him was to accomplish the task or activity at hand to the best of his ability. To run...and to feel the experience of running fully and freely. I learned a lot from that observation and experience, and have successfully brought that lesson with me in my many pursuits in life.

Since then, I've always believed that in each of us is a little child with absolute courage. A child that has the ability to run freely (or express himself fully and freely) — without a care for anything external — without a care for what people would say if he/she experiences a fall. I believe that that courageous part of us, that courageous child within us all, will always be with us for as long as we live. We only need to allow it to emerge more fully. We only need to once again connect with that child within us — and give that child permission to run freely, just like that boy in the park.

他惟一的目标就是自由地奔跑，全神贯注地奔跑。他的行为正是孩子的天性，他活出了真实的自我，就在此时此刻。他不寻求他人的认可，也不担心是否有人旁观。他不在乎别人的评判。他好像也根本不去想有人会看到他摔倒这样令人难为情的事（除了他和妈妈以外，公园里还有其他人）。是的，对他来说，重要的就是尽己所能地完成手头的事情或活动——奔跑，体验自由地全力奔跑的乐趣。看到此情此景，我很受启发，并成功地把这些启示落实到了我生活的各种追求之中。

从那以后，我就一直坚信，在我们每一个人的内心都有一个勇敢无畏的孩子——一个能自由奔跑的孩子，或者玩得彻底而无拘无束地展示自我的孩子——不在乎外界的事物，不在乎自己摔倒了人们会怎么说。我相信只要我们活着，我们内心那个勇敢的部分、那个勇敢的孩子会永远与我们同在。我们只需要让他更彻底地释放出来，我们只需要再次与我们内心的那个孩子联络起来，允许他自由地奔跑，就像公园里的那个小男孩。