“But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this.
Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness.
Of course, none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible.
It just depends what you what to consider. If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options.
It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.”
- David Foster Wallace
Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness.
Of course, none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible.
It just depends what you what to consider. If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options.
It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.”
- David Foster Wallace
11 comments:
i love the thought, but how do you choose to react positively when someone has died? how are you supposed to say "well i'll look at their suicide in a positive way" when there is no positive way? of course you can learn from it and move on to become a better person, but what about when you are the lady who held her husband that is dying from bone cancer? how do you choose to view things in a better way when nothing seems to resound of "love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down"?
this post gives me hope and makes me annoyed at the same time. i think its because hope is possible but i'm not "There Yet" and i want to be There, but i dont know how to get There, or how long it will take, but i want it.
In response to anonymous - I was the daughter who held the hand of a father who died from bone cancer, and looking back, we were positive because that's all we could be...We realized we had a choice to let the cancer take everything, or we could fight for our spirit. It could have his body, but not our spirits. We appreciated each other more and we laughed at the irony of me now changing his diapers. Yes, there were tears too, but when it happens to you - you will see that everything seems to "resound of 'love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down'".
I love this quote!
@ anonymous: I don't think it is about looking at things "positively" but about approaching people with mercy. For your example of the suicide, you have a choice whether when you think of the person lost you think "what a selfish person to have taken their lives in such a way and left such a mess behind for the people who love them" or you can think "how much pain and hopelessness that person person must have been feeling to believe that suicide was their only choice".
One thought is full of judgement and the other full of mercy.
Thanks for this quote. It's perfect for today. I got into a really horrible car accident a few years back and I'm still really shaky about driving, simply because I don't do it that often.
Today I was making a left hand turn out of a side street onto the main road next to my residential street when the car behind me blared on it's horn for not going. I couldn't see around a bus picking up people and didn't want to take the chance. The man got out of the car and came up to mine and started pounding on my window and yelling at me for not knowing how to drive. It was really scary but I just locked my doors and made a safe turn when I could. I was really upset afterwards and didn't understand why this man would be so crazy. This quote gives me more hope in man kind that he wasn't just crazy but had a reason for his actions, although that doesn't make them okay.
I really loved this. I try to be as positive as I can in any situation, it gets hard, but to overcome those consuming feelings of doubt and depression makes me feel more triumphant than any other act could.
That was something I really needed to read.
Wonderful.
Anonymous, I'm sorry for your loss. Did you know that the author (David Foster Wallace) committed suicide himself 2 years ago after a horrifically long battle with depression? I'm thankful that his poignant and positive thoughts have reached so many (I was lucky enough to be one of his students). The essay in full: http://tinyurl.com/2uf9mtb
You never know what battles people are waging. It doesn't excuse nasty behavior, but you can choose to get angry and frustrated, or you can choose to let it wash over you like rocks in a river and move on. (That rocks thing is a Buddhist thing.)
I also wish for that sign of "lost, tired, overwhelmed, cut me some slack." I find if you usually look really sorry when making a driving error, suddenly people's faces change from super angry to compassion. I wish there was a universal symbol for sorry like there is for telling someone where to go.
I enjoyed reading this.
It reminds me of something I talked about on campus last week. Focus on individuals rather than groups. Instead of thinking how someone fits into a stereotype, actually consider their individual traits. :)
such a good reminder.
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