Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
Explaining things to a six year old isn’t easy. They are still in the “why?” and “how come?” stage. But, they are starting to reason and analyze. This is the age when questions like, “how does Santa Claus get to every house in the world?” and “how does the Easter Bunny carry all those eggs?” start to come up… the child is starting to look at the world and analyze what reality seems to be telling them and what these tails have been telling them. At six, when the child says, “why,” you need to have a real answer. The “well the Easter Bunny is magic” answer just won’t cut it.
So, Einstein’s statement holds a very good lesson. If you hold a belief or opinion, or take a stance on a current topic, make sure you can explain why to a six year old.
Now, many of the issues you have as an adult may be beyond a six year old. But, the idea is still valid. Can you even explain why you hold your beliefs to yourself?
What’s the common sense here? So many of us today ‘jump on the bandwagon’ without really knowing why. We may like the idea. But, we don’t dig to find out why it’s appealing to us. And often we don’t dig down to see who’s really driving the bandwagon and why? So, use a little common sense – know why you are supporting a person/cause/organization, know why it’s important to you, and know who’s leading the cause (and what their motivation is).