PREPARE YOUR EARS TO LISTEN AND YOUR HEART TO RECEIVE AS YOU TAKE IN THE WORDS THAT LOOK TO CHANGE LIVES, RENEW HEARTS AND OPEN MINDS.
If you ask any child and possibly any adult what their favorite holiday is, most would say Christmas and although their birthday is not a state or national holiday, it will usually be the runner up. The indistinguishable facts of both days in most households will include family gatherings, fun, excitement, and most of all, gifts or better yet toys.
A toy just like many other words in the English language has different definitions and different ways it can be used. If used as a noun, it could be an object for a child to play with or used to describe a breed or variety of dog. When used as a verb, the meaning could imply a movement or handling of an object absentmindedly or nervously or considering an idea or proposal casually or indecisively.
For the sake of this post, I will use it as a noun in the representation of an object for a child to play with or to be more specific, a person treated by another as a source of pleasure or amusement rather than with due seriousness. A good acronym to use in this situation is "Temptation Of Youth (TOY)."
At what age should we give up our TOY or simply put, our childish ways or things? If you were looking for a mate, then you would probably say now, but is that really true? As we mature, we begin to look for someone who is honest, patient, compassionate, dependable, determined, loyal, optimistic, gracious, proactive, and I'll finish this list off with respect. Although these are admirable qualities to look for, I think once you found this person, they might be on the borderline of a nervous breakdown, stressed and possibly depressed because of the lack of fun missing out of their lives.
Everyone needs to reach back into their childhood and get qualities like having an imagination, being accepting of others, humorous, easy to get alone with, exciting, curious, a believer and possibly a little flirtatious (with you of course). To be a balanced person, both of these traits and characteristics are needed but when one doesn't know when to switch from being immature and only wanting everything their way or being so mature that they lose their trait of being funny, spontaneous, and appealing is when mistakes and tension is caused.
When individuals are in the "getting to know you" phase, they tend to hide their unbalanced ways to impress the other person. Unfortunately, people don't find out what the other person TOY is or what childish thing they are holding on to until it is too late. So in an effort not to hide or conceal, you must first recognize your own TOY. What are you holding on to that you need to let go? Leaning too far to the childish ways could or will destroy the adult in you and just as a kid gets punished when they do wrong, so will an adult be punished. This is usually the point when the parent states "this is going to hurt me, more than it will hurt you”, because they know without the correction, the childish behavior will continue to be a problem if unchecked.
We all have a TOY or childish way that we continue to go back to as we need some of those ways to balance who we are. Before you reach back for that habit, make sure it is a positive one that won't require you to remember the correction process that included pain, hurt, and embarrassment. We all have the power to break a habit but do you have the power to break yourself from the habit? #SPEAK2MYHEART
