The Great Sin

If you ever see your child, a youngster, or someone dear to you laughing with abandon—ha-ha-ho-ho—their heart wide open, don't you dare scold them to stop their laughter.

Why? Let me tell you.

This carefree laughter will fade away on its own one day. One day, even with a thousand reasons to laugh, they won't laugh anymore. Life will thrust such blows and counter-blows upon them that they'll forget how to laugh altogether.

Instead, let your dear one—who doesn't yet grasp the world's harsh reality—laugh to their heart's content, before they come to understand life's bitter truths.

This world is a grotesque battlefield. As long as a person remains innocent, devoid of worldly wisdom, the world remains joyful for them.

Then, day by day, the colorful veils that have formed over their eyes will begin to lift, and they'll slowly learn to forget laughter, or to suppress it.

They'll see that most of what appears colorful in this world is, in truth, a mirage. They'll discover that the tarred road they thought so smooth will make them stumble again and again when they try to walk upon it.

One day, sorrows will encircle them like bark around a tree. They'll be astonished, sometimes struck speechless. They'll realize this world is not the world whose picture they had painted in their mind.

Better to let them laugh now, let them run with hearts unbound. This laughing, cheerful person might not laugh five or ten years from now, even if they want to. Because by then, life will have slowly stolen away every reason they had to laugh.

One day, perhaps you won't be able to make them laugh, no matter how hard you try. Or you'll see them throw a forced, brittle smile your way before slipping past, and you'll stare after their retreating figure, consumed with remorse, thinking... once I cruelly stole away this person's rippling laughter.

When someone couldn't laugh in youth because of your fear, couldn't laugh in age because of life's wounds—think about it: the responsibility for that person's lifelong lack of laughter rests entirely with you! Tell me yourself—who in this world has committed a sin greater than yours, where, and when?!