Children are wonderful, bright-eyed, positive, full of ideas, and as curious as can be imagined. Truly, they are a blessing from God. However, any time I want to understand a little bit of human nature, all I have to do is observe them from a different angle. 

In addition to all the good things we practically idolize about children in our culture, there are many of the uglier sides of humanity on display, as well. These include selfishness, possessiveness, emotional immaturity, short-term focus, and a lack of taking responsibility for their actions. It is characteristics like these, when displayed in "adults" who should know better, that are most bothersome.

Take, for instance, the concept of stewardship. This is the concept that the "things" we have are gifts and should be cared for accordingly. Included in this list is our physical bodies and health, our finances, our relationships, and the world in which we live. 

Children are not very good stewards of anything, this is apparently because stewardship is something that must be learned. Children live through their days with nary a thought about their physical diet, muscular development, money, friendship maintenance and cultivation, and the environment. Let's take that last category of "environment" for an example: children leave messes everywhere they go, leave lights on they don't need, waste food, leave water running, and a whole host of additional behaviors that would make Al Gore wince. I could go on. 

In short, while we can learn a lot from our children about the bright side of humanity, we can probably learn just as much about the darker side. In the area of stewardship we adults should work at becoming better caretakers of all we've been given. Neglect not your health, your relationships, or your planet. In all things, excess is usually wasteful and destructive, negligence is irresponsible, and apathy is pathetic.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that as "grown-ups" we should make sure that we have.