why adults need recess too

the importance of childlike wonder and bringing it back into your daily life

“How to start investing 101!” “Here’s how I bought a house at twenty-one years old!”

“Walk 10,000 steps minimum, daily.” “Oh, you still haven’t gotten a new job yet?”

The infuriating affirmations repeat and repeat, like rehearsed prayers during Midnight Mass.

Throughout our lives, even during childhood, we are thrown a tale as old as time, suggesting that in order to live a fulfilling life, we must have a promising career that provides a stable income, buy a house, and build a family.

No one warns us as children that growing up means facing life's gentle but relentless storms, each crack in the glass shaping us rather than breaking us completely.

People may falter, and the magic we once saw in the world may dim, but it never truly vanishes—it lingers in the spaces between heartbreaks, waiting to be rediscovered.

One day, the rose-tinted glasses slip from our eyes, and we mourn their loss—until we realise the world is still filled with colour, not just in dreams or distant fantasies, but in the quiet, unexpected moments of wonder that find us when we least expect them.

This is why we must remember to keep joy and play in our everyday lives, even in adulthood, even when we care for our parents when they are old and grey, suffering with grief and loss as we watch them wither away.

Even during motherhood, when the baby cries and keeps you awake at night.

When you are young, you believe that magic can be filled in a cup, that dreams can become true and that Jack’s Beanstalk is growing in your garden or is waiting for you at your local park, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be explored.

What happened to playfulness? What happened to fantasy?

Today’s world has a cunning way of making us feel small and weak.

Capitalism and hyper-individualism have cast a spell that has bewitched an entire generation, convincing us that it is not possible to work a 9-5 and live a fulfilling life.

It has convinced us that we can’t enjoy life’s simple, mundane pleasures or pursue the passions that keep us awake at night.

Everyday, you wake up and think about that book, your book, your unwritten manuscript that haunts your dreams, yet you refuse to write it.

Why? Because of fear. Write that damn book.

Sometimes during the week, you wake up in the morning and feel the ache in your back, your body begging for relief, begging to be taken care of. Yet, you shake it off and tell yourself that nothing but a quick coffee will fix your day.

You are wrong.

Your mother calls you and tells you that she has to stay at work longer than usual, so she asks you to pick up your siblings from school. It’s sunny outside, and the scorching heat reminds you of childhood summers in caravans.

You may not have been able to afford to go abroad. Still, you enjoyed the time when your parents finally got along, and when you and your siblings played in the swimming pool together, and the memory of nostalgia brings you comfort.

We go to the park, watch kids have the time of their lives, and see them include playfulness in their everyday lives.

Growing up means being braver, happier, and freer.

It’s time to bring back that childlike curiosity about life. It’s time to fall in love with life again—relishing the simple joys of sharing a meal with loved ones, strolling through the park with your best friend, and swinging high as your little ones giggle, watching eagerly from their buggies.

It’s time to look outside and see the sun shining, blazing like Titian’s fiery wheel in the sky, and randomly decide to make a barbecue dinner for yourself or a friend you invite for the night.

Keep drawing and creating art even in your forties, fifties, sixties and seventies.

Keep reading books and obsessing over literature until your last dying breath, and continue to travel the world and re-visit your favourite countries until your back finally gives out.

Keep having fun as you dance the night away at parties, celebrating the small and big occasions in life until you need a walking stick to keep you going.

Show up for your friends and loved ones until you breathe your last breath on this earth.

Instead of getting dinner to catch up with an old friend, book an arcade and spend the night there, and re-create old childhood memories of you playing at the arcade with family.

Nostalgia may sting as much as it emotionally touches. Still, it reminds us that memory is beautiful, and when the memory of past experiences is not enough to bring us comfort, we can create new worlds, new dreams and new identities.

As I approach my twenties, I have been doing a lot of personal development. Some of this development includes reading obsessively, with a maddening hunger.

And at other times, it’s been rediscovering my childlike wonder about the world and the people that inhabit it.

Every day, I increasingly realise that I can have it all. I can fill magic in a cup and drink it at night. I could read literary fiction one day and then obsess over philosophy and Jacques Lacan’s theory on desire the next day.

I can do whatever I want with my life and dream boldly and widely because this life is for me to shape it how I want; this body is my own, and I deserve to fit and mould myself into any image.

“Stuff your eyes with wonder. Live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid in factories. Ask for no guarantees, ask for no security; there was never such an animal.” — Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

So many of us try, in our adult lives, to live up to a child’s fantasy. We mourn our childhood selves, and we wish that time machines could exist so that we could go back to the past and replicate how we made life magical as kids.

Perhaps it’s time to start living in the now and to bring back childlike wonder in our adulthood. We owe it to ourselves to find beauty in the mundane.

Book Recommendations That Will Help Bring Back Childlike Curiosity: (The full list can be found on my TikTok and Instagram)

• Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson

This novel is so beautifully crafted. It’s magic realism and plays with the power of imagination and the perception of reality. The story is not plot-heavy, but it follows a young girl named Silver who is motherless and anchorless.

Jeanette Winterson is an author that I look up to, as her work alone has genuinely helped me rediscover my childlike wonder in life and literature. All of her work is incredible.

• Caraval by Stephanie Garber

Caraval is a world within itself, which teaches us that magic can be sipped from a cup and that dreams can come true. While reading, I felt I was within the pages, exploring the world with Donatella and Scarlett (the protagonists), playing the world’s most anticipated game.

• The Six Deaths of The Saint by Alix E. Harrow

This short story is only thirty pages yet it resonated with my every being. This book will stay at the centre of my heart forever. This otherworldly story follows a servant girl who is chosen to become a warrior. My description of this book is ambiguous, just like the story is. Read it and watch how you’ll be transported to another world.

• Any Children’s Literature

Lately, I have been revisiting my favourite books from childhood, and they have sparked a certain happiness and joy in my heart that is quite hard to put into words. I read so much as a child but my personal favourites were:

• The Scent of Magic by Cliff Mc Nish

• Gangsta Granny by David Walliams

• George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl (PLEASE read this one)

• Mr Stink by David Walliams

• (Any) Peter Rabbit Books by Beatrix Potter

• The Cat in The Hat by Dr. Seuss

• The Twits by Roald Dahl

• The Tiger Who Came To Tea by Judith Kerr

• The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson

• This Reddit discourse also has a lot of book recommendations:)

I love you all deeply, and I hope that you take care of your inner child:)

Stay tuned for future posts on The Playground of Ideas. Feel free to stay connected with me on TikTok and Instagram .