Living Backwards – Part II

“Every child you encounter is a divine appointment.”

– Wess Stafford

What I am advocating for is the return to a prominent garden. Eden. The Garden of Eden. Our original home. Our original glory. Our re-made home.

Besides, the most important years of a person’s life are ages 0-5, so why not end with the good years instead of starting with them? Why not “go out with a bang,” as the saying goes? The exclamation point to your life, like the crescendo to Beethoven’s the Fifth. We eat dessert after our dinnertime meal, right? I think this says a lot just in that one acceptable practice alone–despite the magnet on your fridge that says, “Life is short, eat dessert first.”

After all, the most formative and impressionable times a personal being experiences are when they are a baby, an infant, and a child. It is in these early, primitive years that we develop neurologically (and how much do we really know here, in spite of the recent spike of interest in neuroscience??), socially, and emotionally. It is also where we form the beliefs and convictions that govern us for the rest of our lives, whereby our fears, sadness, and anxieties originate from–as well as our primal needs for trust, play, belonging, and acceptance. It is all rooted in those early, unconscious years where most people just sort of overlook this period in a young person’s life, eagerly waiting for the time when they can do things with the child (throw a ball, play catch, go for a bike ride, hit golf balls–you know what you’ve been waiting to do with your own kiddo or someone else’s.)

These are the hallmark times that are crucial to a person’s life and that set the stage for how they will live the rest of their life. In short, this period of time is the threshold point that ultimately determines the trajectory of one’s life. I mean, how much of the pain, wounds, and trauma in your life are from this period of your life–along with the joys, wonder, and the sheer simple and fun times you had back then of just playing and being you? 

There’s a popular saying in the business and education world’s that exhort its people to “begin with the end in mind.” This is what I am talking about here. This is what I am advocating for, as we re-think the sequence of human life. Maybe this is just myth or folklore. Maybe there are some seeds of truth sprinkled within it. Perhaps the world is waiting for the next C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien of the 21st century to take this idea and create & develop it into an award-winning, timeless Fantasy series.

But, what if this is more than all of that? What if it stretches past the mythological and enters the very real realm of realism–that what is not only possible, but is also true and ever-real? In other words, it would be our reality and displayed right before our very own eyes. I think this idea would prove to be astonishingly refreshing to the soul. Maybe this is the missing ingredient to our lives, as in the missing piece that finally connects the 1,000 piece puzzle you have devoted innumerable hours to. It would be like a golden key that unlocks the mystery to our heart’s–and our life. And, once connected, or pieced together, the riddle to our life would be discovered and our lives would be properly understood.