I spend most of my time in two worlds. At home, I’m raising two small children who are at the mercy of their emotions. They are easily upset and don’t hesitate to show it. We are trying to teach them to think before they speak or act. We are trying to teach them to feel their emotions instead of being their emotions. At work, I am constantly interacting with the public. I have no control over their expectations. I see adults’ inability to handle their emotions any better than my children can. And I must also deal with how poorly people communicate. Many people just can’t get to the point and plainly state what they want.
I am fending off other peoples’ bullshit all day long. It happens at work then I come home and it happens there. Sometimes as soon as I wake up it starts and it doesn’t end until I go to bed. My children are six and eight years old. My six year old is lovely and she is the most consistently fabulous greeter that I have ever known. A few nights ago, when I got home from work, she got out of bed and came running down the hallway, “Daddy, Daddy, I heard you come home and couldn’t wait to see you”. But last night I couldn’t wait for her to go to sleep so I could be done dealing with her. At work, I am in the middle of many different relationships but I am the one that people deal with. I am the one telling them the things they don’t want to hear. I am usually not the one in control of any of it but I’m the one who gets to tell them. And I am also held to a ridiculous level of service. It’s not enough to be polite. I am expected to be welcoming and friendly even when the people I’m dealing with are shitting on me.
I have been trying to stay calm, polite, and respectful in these situations. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don’t. When I do not succeed I feel frustrated. But what I’ve been realizing is that even when I do succeed I feel frustrated. Even when I’ve handled a situation as well as I could possibly have handled it I usually still end up getting shit on by the person I’m dealing with. My respectfulness, my politeness, my calmness is not making a difference.
That’s frustrating.
It has recently occurred to me that I had the expectation that if I got better at handling these situations with other people that it would change the situation. That the other people would act differently too. That has not come true. If I speak calmly to my kids and treat them with respect instead of yelling they still continue to disobey. If I treat people at work with respect they still act like asses. There is a gap between what I expected to happen and what really happens and that increases my frustration.
The idea of non-attachment is that we strive to do things the right way without being attached to the outcome. Without expectations. That is not easy under any circumstances. It is especially difficult when I am at work getting judged for my level of service or when I’m telling my child not to climb on the furniture for the 3,000th time. But I clearly have no control over how other people will behave so doing my best without expectations of the outcome is really the only choice I have. And it frees me from the frustration. I own my actions. I do not own other peoples’ actions. I do not own the outcome of the situation. I’ve gotta get better at remembering this.
Another related idea is that our ego is the source of these frustrations. The ego is our sense of “I”. It is what makes me think that I am different than you. It is what makes me think I’m special. Without the filter of the ego I would be able to see that there is no difference between you and me. I wouldn’t be disappointed that things didn’t turn out the way that I wanted or hurt that someone was rude to me even when I was polite to them because there really is no “I” to get disappointed or hurt.
So, I can see all these never ending interactions as sources of frustration. I can be worn out and beaten down by it. I can feel bad about it. Or I can see all these interactions as many opportunities to practice non-attachment. I can see them as chances to set aside my ego. We practice everything else in order to get better and these interactions are practice. The more I practice the better I will get.
One way of looking at these situations is just as true as the other. We get to choose our point of view. It’s just so hard for me to not be attached when I’m telling one of my kids something that I’ve told them two or three times per day for the last two years. It’s even harder when I’m dealing with another adult who is so focused on his/her own want that he/she can’t see any other side of the situation. To be treated rudely by another adult is so much worse than being treated rudely by a child because we think adults should know better (that’s another expectation).
Does it sound a bit foolish to think of dealing with a rude person as an opportunity? Of course it does. But in these situations we are in control of so very little. One of the few things we can control is our point of view. We get to choose how we see the situation. We can see all these frustrations from a different angle. After all, the rudeness and insensitivity being dumped on us is not really about us anyway.
Shawn,
I am going to keep in mind your words that we want our kids to feel their emotions and not be the emotions. Non-attachment, too. Parenting is not for wimps. It seems to be kicking my ass.
Right. When we feel a breeze we say we feel the breeze. We don’t say we are the breeze. But with emotions we often say we are happy not we feel happy. We don’t need to become our emotions. They are just sensations.