we should remember to be more childlike. As children don't know what they are supposed to think, they naturally go with their true feelings - and sometimes come out with startlingly insightful and prescient judgements as a result. Trusting their own minds, they tell us that Granny is a bit selfish or that spiders are pretty; they blurt out that a lavish wedding was very boring or that the nicest thing in the world is to lie on the floor looking at the ceiling. Once we throw off the shackles of what other people think, and how we assume we're meant to feel, we're free to discover what genuinely matters to us, however eccentric or odd it might appear. We can discover for ourselves what manner of life pleases us, and the fact that it may look absurd or ridiculous or frivolous to others won't particularly bother us.

— Simpler Life by Alain de Botton, The School Life of School The (Page 23)