How To Keep From Pouting Your Way Through Life

The Pouting Boy SFGate.com ran a brief story today about an incident at the San Francisco Giants home game last evening.  Interestingly enough, that story got more press than the impressive hitting by rookie Brandon Belt who belted a two out, two run homer to break the 3-3 tie and win the game for the Giants.  The story?  A little pouting boy.  Watch this 18 second clip that has made the rounds on ESPN.com and all over YouTube.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooHMdr8-9Ac&w=425&h=349]

Now I certainly don't blame the little boy for being disappointed about not getting the foul ball.  It is after all every kids' dream (and even most adults') to catch a ball at the park to take home as a "I was there" trophy from your favorite player.  And it was also gracious of the Giants' organization, after seeing the boy so disappointed, to make a special trip up to his section and give him a Giants' baseball.  Everyone seemed happy in the end.

But there's something about that blatant pout that speaks to me about life.  It's concerning how we deal with disappointment and unmet expectations.  How easy it is to be experiencing something in the present and then suddenly wish we had something more, allowing our disappointment to take away our joy in the moment.  Just being at your favorite team's baseball game is a pretty special experience for any kid--enjoying a father-son outing, eating hot dogs and garlic fries and a Coke or Sprite, sitting in the stands watching your favorite players on the field, cheering for your team, doing the seventh-inning stretch, singing and shouting the "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" theme song, looking at the big screen and enjoying the view, caught up with thousands of others in the joy.  It's all a pretty great experience.  That's why baseball is such an All-American past-time.

But like that little boy, we put a little pout on our faces--we allow our desire for more to dampen and sometimes even ruin our joy in the present.  We start complaining about something:

"There's too much garlic on the fries!"  "I ordered a Sprite not a Coke so why did you bring me the wrong order?"  "I was standing up ready to catch the ball--it was coming straight toward me--so why did you have to reach up and grab it instead?"  "Why doesn't the sun break out of the clouds and make it warmer for the game?  It's always so cold here!"  "Why does the guy behind me have to shout so loud?  It's annoying!"   "These seats are terrible!  Why didn't you find us better ones?"  "Why can't we make enough money to pay for better seats!"

And before we know it, we've run joy into the ditch and allowed disappointment, bitterness, resentment, complaining, even sometimes anger to take control.  We lose the beauty of the moment.

Do you know any people who live like this?  Have you ever allowed disappointment and unmet expectations to ruin your moment?

Pollyanna Wasn't Naive

Leo Baubata, in his highly popular blog "Zen Habits," recently wrote a column in which he calls this kind of mindset "a fool's game."

"Many of us do this, but if you get into the mindset of thinking about what you 'could' be doing, you’ll never be happy doing what you actually 'are' doing. You’ll compare what you’re doing with what other people (on Facebook and Twitter, perhaps?) are doing. You’ll wish your life were better. You’ll never be satisfied, because there’s 'always' something better to do.  Instead, I’ve adopted the mindset that whatever I’m doing right now is perfect."

Imagine developing that kind of mindset and how that would impact your experience of life.  What you are doing right now is perfect.  You have everything you need right now in this moment.  It's perfect.

Is this too Pollyannaish?  Interestingly enough, I was reading a book recently which talked about Pollyanna's story and how misunderstood her experience has been by so many people.  Our culture uses her name to describe a negative quality--naive, refusing to face reality, living in a fantasy land, unable to handle the truth, etc.  In fact, as her story actually describes, Pollyanna was well aware of the foibles and dysfunctions of the people that she went to live with.  She had deep insight into their struggles and keenly felt the pain from their meanness and lack of respect for her.  But she chose to look on the bright side.  She refused to allow their attitudes to negatively affect hers.  She chose to see the good instead of the bad.  She chose to step into joy for the moment by looking for and finding and reveling in the positive experiences.

The Divine Nature

I'm reminded of the Bible text describing God which says, "Man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart."  The divine nature is about choosing to view people and situations from the best perspective possible.  The divine nature chooses to give people the benefit of the doubt, to focus on the inner goodness and inherent value of people and circumstances.

This isn't a choice for naivete.  Or maybe it is.  Perhaps God chooses to be, like Jesus commended to us, like little children who tend to see the good, who quickly get over the negative and jump right back into relationship, who are quick to forgive, who do so well in living in the joy of the moment, grabbing all the gusto in the present rather than living in the past or the anxiety of the unknown future.  "Right now is perfect.  I have everything I need in this moment."

God certainly acknowledges lack, failure, inadequacy.  God lives with a constant keen sense of incompleteness in the world God created to be perfect.  God know what God desires and longs for and therefore what is lacking in the present.  But the fact that the divine nature in scripture is always described in the present tense--I AM--shows that God lives in the Now, this Moment.  And this truth about God sanctifies, makes holy, every Moment, Now.

The Empowering Secret

Reflecting this perspective on the divine nature, the Apostle Paul (one of the most prolific writers in the New Testament) gave his personal testimony with the words, "I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. ¹² I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. ¹³ For I can do everything through the One who gives me strength."  (Philippians 4:11-13)

There is strength and power in focusing on the divine attribute of the Now, the I AM, the holy Present Moment.  God's presence lives in us, empowering us to capture the joy right now, to see the moment as perfect, to choose contentment by acknowledging "I have everything I need right now in this moment.  Let me enjoy this present."

It doesn't mean there isn't hardship or difficulties or pain or sorrow in our lives.  To deny that would be to short-circuit life.  Even Pollyanna, and certainly the Apostle Paul, knew their harsh realities.  But to allow unmet expectations and disappointment to run joy off the road is to live an unnecessarily unhappy life, never satisfied, never content, never at peace.  Pollyanna and Paul refused to live that way.  And their choice for joy and contentment paid them rich rewards.  They had the "secret" to strong living.

The Spiritual Practice of Now

Here's how Leo Baubata describes his spiritual practice of the Now mindset:  "I’m always happy with what I’m doing, because I don’t compare it to anything else, and instead pay close attention to the activity itself. I’m always happy with whoever I’m with, because I learn to see the perfection in every person. I’m always happy with where I am, because there’s no place on Earth that’s not a miracle.  Life will suck if you are always wishing you’re doing something else. Life will rock if you realize you’re already doing the best thing ever."

I don't want to pout my way through life.  I can easily fall into that trap--I know myself too well.  As a "maximizer," it's my tendency to always want to improve things.   That's okay.  But if I allow that to never let me step into contentment and joy in the present moment, I rob myself, and my "wanting more" robs those around me of the joy of the moment, too.  So when I saw that video clip of the little pouting boy, I was convicted to make a different choice in my life--to learn how to relish the joy of the moment--to practice saying, "This moment is perfect.  I have everything I need right now.  It's good and beautiful and I'm going to revel in it!"

And besides, who wants to get that "life sucks!" look on your face like that little kid every time something doesn't go your way?  Almost embarrassing!

Your Swan Song and The Antidote to Busyness

[If you like these posts, feel free to share them with others - click on the share button to the right.  If you would like to receive each new blog post as an automatic email, please subscribe at the right.] Do you ever struggle with the challenge of trying to balance all the different commitments in your life like work, family, personal development, spirituality?  You perhaps want to pay equal attention to every area but then feel frustrated and sometimes guilty that you simply don't have the time or energy to do it all good enough?

In an article in the latest Inc. magazine, Nancy Rosenzweig, a serial entrepreneur and CEO and the mother of two small children shared a profound insight.  That fact that she also devotes significant time to volunteer work has sometimes caused tension at home.  In responding to criticism about the potential of neglecting the most important things in her life by simply being too busy, she paraphrased the poet David Whyte and said, "The antidote to buyness is not rest but rather 'wholeheartedness.'" She says that her community commitments, for example, don't deplete her - they energize her.  "Nurturing ourselves by doing things we're passionate about in turn allows us to 'wholeheartedly' nurture others - including our families and our companies."

It does raise the significant spiritual question, How are you replenishing your body, mind, heart, and spirit?  Is there anything you're involved in that you're engaging in  "wholeheartedly?"  Are you paying attention to what really energizes you, to what taps into your deep passion?  Or are you simply going through all the right motions in all the areas of your life, giving whatever you have to give to all of them, but your heart and soul are not being utilized or plumbed or stimulated?  You're working really hard (lots of activity) but you still don't feel like you're getting anywhere?  You're dissatisfied deep inside?  Are you simply busy, working diligently and with great effort, trying to be successful in everything, but experiencing a slow burn leading to a slow death inside?  You're losing track of who you really are?

David Whyte, in an excerpt from "Crossing the Unknown Sea," describes this reality with the words, "Your exhaustion is a form of inner fermentation. You are beginning, ever so slowly to rot on the vine."

What a tragic picture.  The grape is designed to grow on the vine, to mature to the point of being able to be harvested and ultimately turned into something that brings great joy and satisfaction to others.  But if it is left too long on the vine, it experiences a slow rotting from the inside out.  And ends up being discarded.

The word courage in English comes from the old French word cuer, heart.  You must do something heartfelt, reminds David Whyte, and you must do it soon.  Which begs the question, what are you doing in your life that is truly heartfelt?  What are you doing that speaks both to and from your deepest soul, expressing your inner longings and desires and God-given passion?  To do that takes courage - a movement in the heart to bold action and risk.  That's why so few people truly possess courage.  It's sometimes easier to simply maintain the status quo and not rock the boat and try to please everyone.  But that kind of heartless living ultimately leads to a busyness that little by little destroys the soul and ends up useless to blessing others.  It's not easy living with courage.

This clumsy living that moves lumbering as if in ropes through what is not done, reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks.

And to die, which is the letting go of the ground we stand on and cling to every day, is like the swan, when he nervously lets himself down into the water, which receives him gaily and which flows joyfully under and after him, wave after wave, while the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm, is pleased to be carried, each moment more fully grown, more like a king, further and further on. (Rainer Maria Wilke, "The Swan")

In commenting on this poem, applying it to a friend who comes to see him, Whyte says, "You are like Rilke's Swan in his awkward waddling across the ground; the swan doesn't cure his awkwardness by beating himself on the back, by moving faster, or by trying to organize himself better. He does it by moving toward the elemental water where he belongs. It is the simple contact with the water that gives him grace and presence. You only have to touch the elemental waters in your own life, and it will transform everything. But you have to let yourself down into those waters from the ground on which you stand, and that can be hard. Particularly if you think you might drown."

No wonder the word courage means "heart."  Much of what we do in life (and God knows we are all extremely busy doing much) has nothing or little to do with our true powers, our truest sense of self, our God-given purpose to which we feel empowered to devote our whole heart.  We often relegate those issues to impracticality ("that's just not the way life is; we can't afford that luxury!").  We judge people who try to live their heartfelt passions as neglecting real life, shirking responsibilities, trying to live in a fantasy world, or having a midlife crisis.  So we end up going through life like a swan that refuses to enter the water and simply waddles around on dry ground - awkward, expending unnecessary effort, and worst of all, not living out its true purpose.

But when the swan chooses to step into the water the whole picture changes.  We use the swan as one of the ultimate symbols of gracefulness, coining the phrase, "as graceful as a swan."  It's a picture of inspiring beauty when a swan behaves like a swan.

What are you and I robbing the world of when we don't have the courage to live the way we were designed by God to live - a life of wholehearted purpose?  What are we robbing ourselves of?    We all need something to which we can give our full powers.  And only we individually know what that is.  Our heart, our deepest soul will tell us if we stop long enough to listen to the swan song.