Young Ideas

Young Ideas

Thank God for young ideas.  Young people will drive you crazy as they try and change the world with their pie in the sky thinking, yet without youthful exuberance the world would be in one great rut.

The fun thing about being old and listening to “Young Ideas” is being able to lay back and let them run with it.  The good ideas will thrive and the stupid ones will wither away.  No point in telling them when the ideas are dumb, they won’t listen and sooner or later they will find out. 

Every once and awhile they are onto something. 

I guess that is how we get progress.

We all start out with ideas to change the world, and most of us slowly mellow to hoping for any improvement while not screwing things up.

I liken it to kicking a ball…wait, bear with me, I think I am going to be on to something here.

Every kid in the world under ten years old thinks the best way to kick a ball is to run at it as fast as possible before kicking it.  Speed does generate power.  It makes sense that the faster you go the more power you can generate and the farther you can kick a ball. 

Every kid does this.  They get back at least ten yards and then run like Hell up to the ball and then kick it.  Eventually they learn by accident or maybe even instruction for the few that will listen, that a two-step approach allows for balance and timing that far outweighs the momentum from a running start.  The best way to kick a ball is through balance, control, timing and then power.

This ball kicking is universal.  Every kid in the world thinks the best way to kick a ball is with a running start.  You can tell them differently, but they will still try it their way before eventually understanding the concept.

Young people are that way with a lot of ideas, politically, economic, relationships…practically everything.  They have preconceived ideas based on what, to the untried mind, seems logical. 

Generally, they learn, and their ideas mature after they learn through life’s hard knocks that the “running start” is not always the best way to get things done.

Then, every once in a while, they try and kick a ball with their instep instead of the obviously superior method of using the toe first.  You can tell them, “Toe first!”  But they will still try a different way to kick the ball.  

It only takes a few years before kicking a ball “soccer” style is the only way to kick.

Sometimes it takes stubborn youthful exuberance to ignore sage advice for the world to progress.  Their bad ideas will prove to be bad ideas quickly, but their trying new things against established methods and ideas is what keeps civilization moving forward.

Sometimes it is difficult to watch when you know from experience they are doing it wrong. The hardest thing about being old is keeping an open mind.

Still, don’t take a running start to kick a ball!