A few weeks ago my wife and I were garage saling with our three young daughters. We stopped at a sale near the close of the day. The hosts were visibly exhausted. They had gobs of things left and were vowing to never host a sale again. Desperate to rid themselves of extraneous items, they offered to give us a toy horse. They made the offer, of course, within earshot of our girls who promptly began to beg.

The toy horse was covered with ink markings—tattoos if you will—placed there by an unsupervised, creative child. The hooves were tattered and in process of defecting from the shanks. Our kids were unfazed. A free horse, they thought. What could be better?

Five minutes later the stuffed beast was the sixth passenger in our minivan. Our kids named the horse Shortbread. They converted the playhouse to a stable and harvested grass from the yard for hay. In the days that followed they fed Shortbread oats for breakfast and read him stories before bed.

It struck me how something so simple (and free) can enflame a child’s curiosity and imagination, which are central to learning and growth. The same is true for everyone—from infants to adolescents to mature adults. We flourish in a life space that offers ample room for creative exploration.

Peak under a board that’s been sitting on top of grass for a long time. The grass is discolored, withered, impacted. It’s not healthy. Remove the board and in time the grass will regain its rich color and grow tall (and children just might harvest it to feed to their stuffed horse). In the same way our lives, and the lives of those in whom we are invested, hold more promise of thriving outside the weight of extraneous objects, activities and words that can suffocate our natural, childlike impulse to improvise, imagine and create.

Related posts:

1. Windfall
2. In favor of poetic education
3. People Change People

Tags: creativity, curiosity, flourish, growth, health, health and well being, imagination, learning, simplicity