How to Experience Wonder as a Grown-up

As you get older, you might have to work a bit harder to find wonder — but it’s worth the effort

Andrew Lawrence Wood
Human Parts

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Illustration: Andrew Wood

Hey C (age 4¾),

When you find yourself completely overwhelmed by something exciting, surprising, colorful, delicious, tuneful, beautiful, funny, inexplicable, shocking, huge, or joyful, your eyes grow big, your mouth drops open and the rest of the world kind of disappears for a moment. You have no choice but to stand right where you are and just take it all in.

Right now, your life is full of moments like these, when the world is so extraordinary that we struggle to wrap our heads around the bigness of it all — it’s something we might call “wonder.”

I think it’s a big part of our responsibility as parents to help you encounter as many wonderful moments as you can, and we’re encouraging you to discover what you love by trying new things, exploring interesting places, playing new games, meeting new people, watching new films, eating new food and listening to new music.

Wonder is about experiencing more of the world, exploring it, and using it to stretch and expand our brains (remember that understanding the world is a key part of growing up? So finding moments of wonder are a really good way to keep growing up).

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