Sally Tippett Rains, Get Going! No Limits free personal development magazine

Wishing we had more money, less wrinkles, and more energy are all things we never even thought about when we were kids. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to go back to that childhood time when we had no worries? When was that time? In our 20s? No, that was filled with the anxiety of finishing up on school and wondering what we were going to do with the rest of our lives? How about our teen years? Never. Remember how stressful they were? What would you wear, who would you go to the dance with, how do you get with the “in” crowd, oh yes and what about the test on Friday morning?

Fourth grade is about the perfect grade to look to when trying to become a better person. Fourth graders are about 10 years old and they don’t have their “grown-up” worries yet. They just float through their lives going from one fun thing to another.

You can learn a lot from a child. They have such wonderful, innocent qualities. Children have not been jaded yet. They have not loved and lost, they have not made a bad investment; they have not had a chance to make a lot of major mistakes in their lives. They just live their lives every day.

As adults we have become so serious. There are many things to be serious about: paying bills, getting married, having children, taking care of our parents, growing older ourselves. We look back on our lives and wonder if we have made the right decisions. Is our life on the right path? How would my life be different if I had taken a different road or made a different personal or career choice?

In the end, we are who we are. We have three choices in our life: we can spend our entire lives trying to be something we aren’t, we can feel sorry for ourselves that we got a bad deal in life and become bitter, or we can accept who we are and do the best we can.

You will have the happiest life if you accept who you are and always strive to be the best YOU you can be. Take the example of Annie. Annie was a happy-go-lucky fourth grader who had been diagnosed with cancer at the age of five. Once diagnosed with a brain-tumor she had to undergo rigorous medical treatments every day for a year. She lost her hair, and some of the time she lost her energy—but she never gave up. She lived with the disease for several years and during that time she changed the world of those around her.

The biggest inspiration she provided was the message to accept yourself no matter what and don’t worry about what others are saying. Do you ever feel inadequate at work? Do you feel like you are being held back because of lack of education, lack of skills, or maybe someone in your workplace is just holding you back. Often it is really our own hearts that are holding us back.

When Annie began to lose her hair, she chose the road most do not. She did not shave the rest of the hair off, so she had little clumps of hair here and there. Even with her big smile, she looked a little goofy, but her attitude was so great no one noticed. When the other patients were covering their bald heads up she was embracing hers. She put little sparkly “clippies” on the clumps that were left. Annie didn’t care what others thought of her, she had the quiet strength inside that carried her through.

She had a faith in something stronger and more important than those detractors on earth. True, she had never experienced the grown-up problems we all face, but at her young age she had gone through many things that adults think they could never do. She did it with the faith of a child and specifically the heart of a ten-year-old. We could all learn some valuable lessons from her.

Some traits of a fourth grader include sleepovers, calling their friends on the telephone, screaming, giggling and being excited about everything, painting their nails, listening to music, and wanting to go everywhere! Some things they do NOT like are: making their beds, cleaning their rooms, doing any chores, and taking naps. They want to be out there living their lives.

Look at your own life. Are you getting a little too worked about “making your bed” and “cleaning your room?” The sun is shining and you are missing a beautiful day. If you take some time out of your structured life and try to add fun to it every day you will see you can become a better person. There is a reason we love grandkids. They are generally happy and it is a time you have an excuse to “be a kid again.”

Annie didn’t care about what she “didn’t have,” she worked with what she did have. She didn’t have a lot of hair, but what she did have, she decorated. Maybe you are in a situation where you are so overwhelmed you are only seeing the negatives.

Why not make a new promise to yourself and try to live like a fourth grader. What were your favorite songs that made you happy? Download them to your computer or i-pod or go buy the CD. Dance, laugh, smile, watch old movies. As you become a happier, more content person, you will see that it flows over to your work-world. If you are more relaxed and not so worried about consequences, you will be able to take even greater risks and the outcome will be more wonderful than you ever thought it could be. What are you waiting for? Get Going