Thoughts From DJ : "Go Fly a Kite" 4-18-2022
DJ: DID YOU KNOW?
For those of you not old enough to remember, in 1964 Walt Disney put out a movie called “Mary Poppins”. It was a musical fantasy ( one of the first done in technicolor) about a rich businessman (Mr Banks) who needed and hired a nanny for his two children. Mary Poppins was played by Julie Andrews (who won an Oscar for her performance) and Dick Van Dyke who played Burt, the whimsical chimney sweep.
She was a magical nanny that employed music and adventure to help two neglected children become closer to their father. It was a social critique that explored the often fraught relationship between children and their adult parents.
It was also a social critique of wealth classes. The adventurers they went on united the lower class of chimney sweeps, who worked tirelessly cleaning the chimneys, with the more affluent in society.
The reason I mention this is the moral lesson of the film. It taught us that the simple things in life ultimately give us the most joy. Like flying a kite, or dancing or whatever. Most of all laughing. As we grow and lose the innocence of youth we take on the burdens of adulthood.
We all reach that point in aging where we change from doing 90% of what we want to do, and 10% of what we have to do ( a child), to 90% of what we have to do and 10% of what we want to do (adult).
Somewhere along the line we get consumed with just staying alive and heap layer after layer of stress on ourselves. We somehow lose the ability to enjoy the gift of life as children do. We find ourselves limited to hoping for a windfall with the expectation the windfall will cure all our troubles. That it will make it possible to revert back to doing what we want instead of what we have to.
It’s like a fisherman that starves because he is always looking for a whale while the schools of fish swim by. Why not catch the fish so you can eat while you’re waiting for the whale?
We all need to do those little things daily that bring us joy and defuse the stress in our lives. Placing all your hopes in a major event to distress your environment, probably not the way to go. We let the little things that bring us moments of joy pass us by while waiting for some major event and we’re missing the blessings from being alive.
Put some thought to it. Go for a walk, climb a tree, sit on a mountain and enjoy the awesome view, pull a prank on your kids or grandkids, call a friend you haven’t talked to in years pretty much any feel-good thing you can think of. And try to do it everyday. You just might be amazed how good your days will be.
In other words “go fly a kite” .