I think that acting like a child is extremely underrated. I know that children are, well, immature. But to me, there seems to be a sweet sincerity in their innocence. In fact, I would go as far as to say that this innocence is beautiful.

Now, I’m not trying to say that being a naïve adult is beautiful—the innocence of a child is very different from an adult’s naivety. I do not condone ignorance or turning a blind eye to society’s ever-growing list of issues. I do not want to suggest that you see the world through rose-colored lenses and assume that everything is hunky-dory when clearly there is much work that needs to be done with racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia… and the like.

What I’m trying to say is that we need to learn to embrace our inner child; an individual practically untouched by heavy expectations, or forced responsibilities, or even the harsh, judgmental gaze of their peers. Think back to your kindergarten years: what was your dream? More importantly, what did you expect from yourself, from life? You knew you had the ability to do great things when you grew up, and you likely believed you could be president or an astronaut if you tried.

What’s so wrong with dreaming? What’s so wrong with having expectations that things can be better and that things can be what you hoped? We talk so much about disillusionment and how much is wrong with society—and I completely get that an easy life cannot be simply handed to you, but I don’t get why we can’t dream.

Because an innocent child may see things as they wish they were and not as they are, we judge them and call them “immature” and “naïve.” I’d like to think that innocence is less about being unknowledgeable and more about being pure. You are your purest self as a child, with dreams and hopes and so much love to give. I think that as we get older, we lose a lot of this purity. We start off as a blank slate that becomes scratched and dirtied with other people’s views on whom we should be and what we need to do to be happy.

I don’t actually think it’s possible to go back to who we were as kids, though part of me wishes I could. I’d like to live a day in my child mind as a 21-year-old, jus to see how much I’ve changed. I do believe in many ways, I and everyone else in this world changes in good ways as we age. But I also think we as people change so much that we tend to lose ourselves in expectations and artificial dreams.

But though we cannot become our child self even again, I do encourage you to do something today that you loved to do as a child. Did you like to color in coloring books? How about play with play-dough? Was there a sport you played on the playground? Or maybe you liked to play pretend, or finger-paint, or even just drink chocolate milk. Whatever you loved, I don’t doubt there’s a part of you that would love to do it again.

I also encourage you to think back to when people asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up. What was your answer? Did it change? It probably did, and I want you to think about why. What stopped you from that dream? Even if the answer is as simple as “I don’t actually want to responsibility of becoming president,” or “I hate the idea of learning astrophysics,” just think about it—because chances are that there was a reason you dreamt it in the first place. Maybe you wanted to be a leader. Maybe you wanted to be powerful, or important, or you wanted to spend your life doing something you loved. And if you haven’t met that childhood goal yet, it wouldn’t hurt to try and find a way to do so.

We have to remember that innocence is beautiful, it’s not wrong to dream, and childhood feelings and wishes and wants are still within us, no matter how much we think we’ve changed. I know you have it in you to make your life a little more pure and a little more centered on a person you once knew but have likely forgotten to consult—your inner, blank-slate self.