Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience.
It isn't more complicated than that.
It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant,
just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.
~ Sylvia Boorstein
Last week I wrote what is intended to be the first of a 3 part series of emails about what I see as three very common trends in our current thinking or societal temperament. Last week's email dealt with our tendency towards simplification and over-simplification in thinking and reasoning. Like most things, a certain amount of simplification can be a good thing for helping with clarity and brevity. But when over done or misused, it can become a faulty pattern of reasoning that fails to account for complete facts, necessary detail, and/ or important details.
This week I want to address the pervasiveness of the desire for instant gratification. Now, I most certainly realize that I'm hardly expressing anything new with this topic. There's a reason why today's young adults are called "The Sesame Street Generation" by some educators. While Bert & Ernie and the gang acted as a highly entertaining and educational entourage for this group when they were toddlers, a side affect of the process was the conditioning to short snippets of entertainment that were constantly changing. This, along with many other forms of electronic entertainment, helped to usher in a mindset with an attention span that is sometimes akin to that of a gnat. While older age folks find much of today's media to be jarring to the point of being uncomfortable, tots to teens these days are totally at home with conversations limited to 60 characters at a pop, a barrage of brief videos, shreds of info from short feeds, and the constantly available and changing entertainment of the internet and all it gives access to. Need information? Grab it in an instant from Google or Bing or any number of super fast search engines. Computers have culled our threshold for patience down to a nano second, it seems. See something you want? Order it with a simple click, and request delivery overnight. Remember when we used to wait for days for a letter to come in the mail? Hah! Now you've dated yourself 'cause that's a concept anyone under 30 probably can't relate to at all. How about the days before microwaves & cell phones? Why it even took us a lot longer to dial on a rotary phone than most 25-year-olds can comprehend, let alone tolerate.
With everything moving so much faster, we've come to accept it as the norm that all things should happen with the ease of high speed. Because news now travels farther and faster than ever before, we can barely begin to understand how different the world is for our children than it was for us at that age. What, for them, will constitute the simpler times? "Hey, remember life before 4G? Man, the days of 2G were so slooooow! Now that was mellow." While we can't all be over night multi-millionaires thanks to a Lotto win, there are far too many who seem to expect that they should be able to cash in young and easily.
"Ah, but wait", you might be saying, "I'm not that young. Yes, I want my computer to be fast, but I still appreciate the fact that some things have to be earned over time and that good things are worth waiting for." And I completely commiserate. But just because we haven't grown up as entirely submerged in the culture of "need for speed", doesn't mean we haven't become infected through association. Compare yourself to your parents, and you'll see what I mean. And while we may be relatively balanced in our desire for expecting some things more immediately while still retaining an appreciation for the benefit of long term goals and pursuits, there is an area where we may more often find ourselves wanting results and wanting them NOW!
And--as you might be guessing considering the forum for this epistle--those occasions where we may be willing to admit that we crave instant gratification, just might be when it concerns our loved ones and their recovery from their ED. No, of course you don't actually expect he or she to get over it in the blink of an eye. You're not that irrational. (No, irrational is what they are.) But aren't there moments in time when you have honestly hoped that a corner had been turned, a light bulb had gone on, and reason had prevailed? Maybe it was after an especially good day. Or it might have been because of a better phone conversation. Or maybe it was following a course of treatment, a session of therapy, or a period of stay at a treatment center. Have you never thought that, well, it's just ridiculous to drag this out? Can't she see the insanity of even one more hour of such behavior and want to get past it now, right now? Haven't you maybe, just maybe, wanted so badly to be able to say just the words that would make sense prevail, the madness end, the healing be real and complete...in an instant...right now...or is it only me?
Oh yes, I know all too well that there are no magic words--there is no instant healing, but that doesn't make me stop craving it deep down inside. Like a tide that ebbs and flows, it's pull is still there, washing up on the emotional beach that is some days eroding beneath my feet. But to give into that desire is to ultimately give in to despair. I choose to step back from the rip tide before its strength gathers and pulls me out to sea. No, I step back. The allure of instant gratification is so, so strong in our culture. But like fools gold, it's reward is not always worth the risk. No, true treasures are most often discovered after long painstaking searches. Dedication, self denial, and perseverance may sound to some like outdated notions. But to those of us who know that our loved one may need lots of time to find their way through the maze that is an addiction, they are words to live and hope by.
The slogan may be "Just do it", but in reality that's often overly simplistic, a rally cry promoting instant gratification.
Perhaps for us, the better current phrase to hang on to is: Now wait for it...wait for it...
Still trying to be patient,
Marjie Ruth
-or- my newer email address: MarjieRuth1@gmail.com
If you are receiving this email directly from me, it's because at some time you asked to be on my super confidential email list. If this is being forwarded to you, that's fine too. And you may feel free to send it on so long as you include the whole email, even this l'il old post script. That way your friends will know who's responsible for these ramblings. Thanks.