My six-year-old daughter Sophie and I

were playing a rhyming game the other day and

out of the blue she asked me, "Why can't I touch the sky?" I laughed inside and thought for a few moments. I tried to explain it from the Jack and the Beanstalk story. Then I tried the old earth space thing, but that was too technical. The more I tried, the clumsier it got when finally I realized I wasn't getting through.

Then I had a realization. What if my daughter had asked the same question

to another six year old? What would the other child have said? Some six year olds think they know the

answer to everything and

its fun to listen to what

they have to say.

Chances are, they would have argued and discussed it until finally reaching agreement. I wished I could have turned the question over to an imaginary

friend and then listen to

the conversation.

That night while lying

in bed, I kept thinking

about her question and

why I couldn't come up

with a really cool answer. Was it because I had "grown up" and now used my

imagination like an "adult"? As I grew, the maturation process obviously had boxed me in. And worse yet... I knew that someday, my little girl just might

lose her pure and trusting imagination to adulthood and maybe stop asking these wonderfully creative questions.

I didn't feel like it was right that I progressed up the ladder of maturity only to lose what I feel is a very important concept: the ability to retain and possess a childlike quality to explore other possibilities.

Where did my childlike imagination go? Why did

it go? I thought I would ask Sophie this question to help me understand why some adults tend to lose sight of this magical way of thinking and why others make a

living by it. — achieveezine.com