A few days ago I was using one of the machines in my athletic club’s circuit weight room, when I heard a guy at a nearby machine say, “Brian?” I said, yes, and the guy said “I’m Bob. Bob Jones.” [Not his real name, as I want to respect his privacy.]
I hadn’t seen Bob for about 36 years or so. We used to play tennis together back when I was into the sport that I’d played since high school. Bob asked if I was still playing tennis. I said, no, not for many years. How about you? He said, no, my legs, pointing to what I thought were long black compression socks on each leg.
I figured he just had a chronic knee injury, or such. But when Bob got up to go to the next machine, I saw that he was shuffling really slowly, using two trekking poles. After I finished my workout, I went over to Bob and told him that I was sorry his legs were in such poor shape.
When I last knew him, Bob was highly athletic and a very good tennis player. We had a memorable practice session of several sets that still sticks in my mind, how we brought out the best in each other that day to such an extent, the club pro, sitting court side, told us after we finished “that was a joy to watch, you two guys getting after it.”
Bob told me that he had back surgery ten years ago and it damaged some nerves. So rather than benefitting from the surgery, he ended up in worse shape. Wow.
I told him that I’d looked into back surgery a few years ago, because I have some serious spine degeneration problems, but the neurosurgeon said that I had some scoliosis (curvature of the spine) that I wasn’t even aware of. So the curvature could lead to my spine collapsing if bone was taken out in the course of a surgery, which the neurosurgeon and I agreed wouldn’t be a good idea, to put it mildly.
I came away from my talk with Bob feeling sorry for him, and grateful that my health problems still allow me to walk, exercise, do Tai Chi, and such. Maybe this won’t last, but I’m feeling less sorry for myself, even with all of my health problems, and more grateful that I’m able to do my everyday activities, even though sciatica in my right leg is somewhat painful the whole time I’m on my feet.
This reminded me of a guided meditation from a modern Stoic practitioner that I listened to with the theme, “You are living the dream life.” The point being that someone worse off than you would look at your life and think, that’s a dream life, even if you believe you have a lousy life. Of course, the opposite is true. Someone better off than you would look at your life and think, I’m living a dream life, because I have it better than the other person.
So it’s all relative, really. Which means the experienced quality of our life can change based on our attitude or perspective. Talking with Bob had a marked effect on me. Even if it is temporary, I came away with a stronger realization that all my inner-talk about myself — like how now, at the age of 77, I’ve got some chronic medical problems that make me long for my younger healthier self — isn’t at all objective truth, but my own thoroughly subjective opinion.
Someone totally paralyzed would look at Bob and see someone well off, living a life they can only dream of. At the moment I’m thankful that my legs are still functioning fine. I see lots of people using walkers both at my athletic club and in grocery stores I shop at. That could be me at some point. I have friends older than me who have to use a walker to get around. They’re not thrilled about this, but they prefer it to being in a wheelchair or bedridden.
I’m not advocating a Polyanna attitude. That seems unrealistic and even fake to me.
The name derives from the 1913 novel Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter describing a girl who plays the “glad game”—trying to find something to be glad about in every situation.
All I’m suggesting is that it can make sense to view our life in a broader context than the self-centered one that I, for sure, often fall into. No matter how difficult our life is, no matter how many struggles we have to engage in, no matter how much pain and suffering we’re forced to endure — we will appear to be living a dream life from the perspective of someone with more difficulties, more struggles, more pain and suffering.
In no way can I maintain an attitude of gratitude for very long. But now and then, as when I talked with Bob, I can feel grateful for my life just as it is. Flawed. Imperfect. Yet mine. A dream life.
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Could not agree more Brian. My mom always said to me that no matter how terrible you feel your lot may be, that there is always someone worse off than you are, and you should be grateful for the positives in your life. This focus, moves you out of your own little world and resulting self centeredness, into an attitude of gratitude, as well as one where you are more considerate of others.
This is a positive and really important post – thank you for sharing this!
FREE AND EASY
A Spontaneous Vajra Song
by
Venerable Lama Gendun Rinpoche
Happiness can not be found
through great effort and willpower,
but is already present, in open relaxation and letting go.
Don’t strain yourself,
there is nothing to do or undo.
Whatever momentarily arises in the body-mind
has no real importance at all,
has little reality whatsoever.
Why identify with, and become attached to it,
passing judgment upon it and ourselves?
Far better to simply
let the entire game happen on its own,
springing up and falling back like waves
without changing or manipulating anything
and notice how everything vanishes and reappears,
magically, again and again,
time without end.
Only our searching for happiness
prevents us from seeing it.
It’s like a vivid rainbow which you pursue without ever catching,
or a dog chasing its own tail.
Although peace and happiness do not exist
as an actual thing or place,
it is always available
and accompanies you every instant.
Don’t believe in the reality
of good and bad experiences;
they are like today’s ephemeral weather,
like rainbows in the sky.
Wanting to grasp the ungraspable,
you exhaust yourself in vain.
As soon as you open and relax this tight fist of grasping,
infinite space is there – open, inviting and comfortable.
Make use of this spaciousness, this freedom and natural ease.
Don’t search any further.
Don’t go into the tangled jungle
looking for the great awakened elephant,
who is already resting quietly at home
in front of your own hearth.
Nothing to do or undo,
nothing to force,
nothing to want,
and nothing missing –
Emaho! Marvelous!
Everything happens by itself.
Beyond OTHERS …. [to compare with]
Beyond relative comparison
Beyond conditioning
are the words of Venerable Gendung Rinpoche
the embodiment of what he expressed
This makes me reflect like the sun through a magnifying glass.
“…. isn’t at all objective truth, but my own thoroughly subjective opinion.”
Well, it’s partly subjective and also partly objective. The factual core of the situation is material and therefore objective. Not being as athletic as before isn’t just an idea in your head; it’s an objective fact.
But of course, one can have wildly different subjective appraisals of a given material situation. Anyone as fond of reading biographies as I am knows that many people who materially have the world a string — health, looks, fame, $ — are often miserable.
Most recent biography I read: The Book of Sheen. I found Charlie Sheen’s life story especially interesting, as he had every advantage and every success, but was satisfied with none of it. He tried to squeeze satisfaction from life with every kind of extreme. Duh, winning? Doesn’t seem like it.
But if the experience of life is in fact “wholly” subjective, that means there’s no absolute truth. And it also means that people who quit the material game of life and choose to follow a guru (or some other practice of transcendental bliss) might be wider than the average worldly bear. They’ve chosen bliss over taking arms against a sea of troubles — is it really that clear they’re foolish to do that? As the Sant Mat sages say, it’s impossible to wrest satisfaction from life. Hence, their transcendental outlook as the solution.
One can argue the spiritual life is merely an imaginary solution. Then again, is it any more rational to believe one can use their self-will to win in this game of life, where everything is threatened, declining, impermanent?
Be happy in your work.
So simple. When the old work is taken from you, find new work that fits.
Find work you can do and like, and make progress in that. Or, if all your work is taken, be happy in your inner work. You have graduated from the old stuff.
There are many things we can’t do, but how can our work and well being have anything to do with that?
When the great choreagrapher, Agnes DeMille was struck down and paralyzed with stroke, it took her a while to get through it.
And then she said something very strange,
“I hope that no young person finds what I’ve found. Bliss. Not able to do what I did, and yet, now an indescribable bliss. I hope they never know that for if they did they wouldn’t do anything else.”
Find that. Live in that, even if the cost is everything else.
You don’t own that other stuff anyway. It is beneath you.
Brian, the Tennis court is unworthy of you anymore.