Mindfulness Mondays 14: Attitude
August 31, 2009 by dr. lam
After returning from Europe recently in July, I spent a day in New York City to attend my baby niece Bailey’s baptism and was prepared to fly back that night to Dallas. We waited on the tarmac for 4 hours because of simultaneously bad weather in New York and in Dallas. The captain told us that if we did not take off within 20 minutes, the flight would be cancelled and we would return to the gate. About 5 minutes before the expiration of our deadline, we started to push off ever so slowly and continued to do this routine for about 10 minutes until I could see from a distance that our gate was approaching us. Of course, shortly thereafter, the captain announces, “I’m sorry to report but weather patterns have changed again and we have been asked to return to the gate. The flight has been canceled.”
I would be lying if I said that I was not disappointed at seeing our gate appear in the distance and the captain’s announcement, but I can say that I did not raise my temper or become startled. The gentleman in front of me stood up, raised his voice at the flight attendant, and when the captain’s door opened, assailed him with further verbal abuse at his lack of communication during our extended interval on the runway. We were compelled to rebook flights, pay full price for transit and hotels, and subject my staff to near chaos to reschedule my patients the following day, two of whom were coming from out of state for my services. We finally took off the following day on a Monday in the afternoon after another 2-hour delay from scheduled flight time.
As you have heard in a previous blog, Viktor Frankl, the survivor of Nazi concentration camps, has said that when all freedoms are taken from you, you have only one freedom left, the freedom of attitude. That variable we can control. It has also been said that when adversity strikes us, it is our attitude that dictates our emotions and how well we can cope with the situation. When we become frazzled, so does everyone else around us. It brings everyone down. When we have a difficult situation, our anxiety is only heightened when we respond with trepidation. Instead, when we look at that situation with resolute calm, we can actually train ourselves to be even calmer in the next situation. We can continue to improve our attitude, when in my case I could not change the latitude.
This week, when you encounter seeming adversity from a coworker, friend, loved one, acquaintance, work or personal situation, past circumstance, future obstacle, or anything that would otherwise perturb you, CHOOSE YOUR ATTITUDE. Choose freedom from the shackles that would bind everyone around you and provide the needed calm and escape your self-imposed prison.
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12 Responses to “Mindfulness Mondays 14: Attitude”
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What a wonderful entry!
I never get tired of hearing about Dr Frankl, of being reminded of the importance of our attitude toward the events of our life, versus our tendency to the harmful inertia of assuming that events can be classified as good, bad or anywhere in the middle according to some sort of universal standard, that actually does not exist. Not for everyone, as one same event is lived differently by different people, and not for ourselves neither! as one same event can trigger all sort of different responses and have different consequences depending on *how* we choose to “read” and “seize” our experiences.
This blog entry reminded of something I have been pondering lately, after recalling some personal experiences. It’s about our attitude toward the inconveniences and annoyances we encounter in our everyday lives, and I believe it is in synch with what Dr Frankl and Dr Lam are bringing up.
We can not control everything that happens in our lives, but we can always choose our attitude. For once, we can choose to accept that not everything will be in control nor ok in our lives, and that, on itself, is liberating. In other words, it is liberating to accept that we are stupid each time we pretend life to fit our needs and desires and expectations at all times. No way to be happy if we try to put “life” in a box, label it, set rules for it. Life just does not work that way. Instead, when we accept that there will always be “stuff” in life that we won’t be able to control, then, ironically, it’s easier to be happy… because it’s our having too many expectations about things we can’t really control -maybe should never control!- that leads us to feel continously frustrated by the small things.
Our attitude toward the things that happen to us, instead, is something that is always in our control and something that causes anything but frustration. Because each time we feel like we are choosing, we feel empowered, and that’s incompatible with feeling like a victim – there is nothing like thinking of ourselves as victims to be unhappy and to set ourselves for further unhappiness.
Back to the situation Dr Lam described and what I have been thinking of in the past few days… speaking of choosing our attitude toward the things that “happen” might sound a bit too vague at first. Being aware of what is the result of reality and what is the result of our attitude toward it is hard to distinguish at first. I mean, unless we work at it, it won’t come naturally. Most of us have not been raised nor grown up in a world that has encouraged us to accept the events of life, including suffering, and make the most of it versus complaining, feeling like a victim, or just feeling miserable, period, when things do not work as we expected them to. It takes a while to get used to realize when and how we can choose different attitudes. It is not always so obvious. Some things seem upsetting no matter how we look at them, and it seems almost impossible to see the “good” in them. It’s not like there is a switch that we can easily turn on so that when something bad happens, we automatically can say “ok, so what?, I won’t be upset” and stop being upset right away. At least it does not always come easily to me!
But something that is somewhat easier to do, I believe, and that helps me get to a “better place” in my mind, and eventually to a better attitude, is to play a game. The game I call as “hunting for the hidden good reminder”. That is: think and think until we find something remotely positive “hidden” underneath whatever bad that happened, based on the idea that “I can always learn something positive, even from the most annoying situation and person”. A specific example would be, imagining a similar scenario (an airplane, a delayed flight, etc.): the people in the counter of the airline are not making things easier for the passengers. The people in the counter seem to ignore how upset everyone is and to take too long in answering to their questions. They are painfully slow and unefficient. That is annoying, and being objective… it’s not ok, sure, for them to ignore the clients and give a bad customer service if it’s their job. There is no way around it. It is not ok. Nevertheless, there is something that these “inefficient” and rude people can be reminding us. What? for once, while what they do is not ok, maybe it is a good reminder that we also do something wrong when we take too many things TOO seriously. When people complain and we take it personally. When we let nervous people drive us nuts and loose our cool. It can make us wonder how many times it’s ok for us to be in a rush and when it would be better for us to calm down, not take things dramatically, especially if and when others seem to want us to take them dramatically. It can also remind us that it’s important to take our time to do things well. That their acting slow and being unefficient can remind us that sometimes we might worry too, too much of being too efficient, of not losing one single minute, while we should take things more slowly, calm down, de-dramatize situations where we have made a mistake, or others have. They might remind us that the world can be going crazy around us and we can still choose to be calm. Does that justify their poor customer service? nope. But we can choose to see beyond the fact that their attitude is extreme, or wrong, and think of OUR extreme reactions, OUR mistakes, the things behind their mistakes that are not all that bad or that we could even benefit from a few doses of! (not let the anxiety of others rub on us, to not always be working against the clock, etc.).
Hope this made some sense to you!
wonderful, MA! great perspective. totally agree. heather, watch out, i think MA has got you beat on the length of her response!
sml
Great post Doc. Adversity is the true measure of a man. My approach is a bigger meta frame that whatever happens, it happens for good reason, and I combine that with what Steve Jobs said about ‘connecting the dots backwards’. In other words, when something that I PERCEIVE as bad happens, I now just reframe it as a ‘necessary evil’ in order for me to move forwards to the next stage that will yield me the results I want.
thanks, vince. as you know, i love apple; and steve jobs’ stanford talk is nothing short of brilliant. i quoted from it at my last aesthetics conference talk at the tail end of it. simply brilliant. if people have not seen that talk, you must go on youtube and type steve jobs stanford and watch it!
Yay!!! Mysteryagain is back!!! We missed you! Yes, Dr. Lam, I think I have some competition again…lol
Great blog post!!! Great example!! Dr. Lam, I’m sure that was stressful, and that is awesome that you were able to handle it so well! Yes, attitude does wonders! I’ve heard it said that attitude is what sets apart the mature from the immature. Hmm, I might need to think about that for a bit. lol
great observation. the guy in the plane looked pretty immature. lol. but we all can get a little immature at times. thanks heather. i expect at least 6 more paragraphs in response please. lol. jk. nord, can you top MA’s response? i think it is weightier than all my blogs this week! thanks MA!
sml
lol Dr. Lam.
Yes, thanks, mysteryagain!
lol.
Wow!, my answer was lenghty, really! gee… too long, and I mean it! I am laughing at myself!
I just think there is a jewel in what Heather said: “attitude is what sets apart the mature from the immature”. Such a great thing to quote and tell ourselves. I think I am going to actually print it and hang the paper in the wall at my office. Something good to reread over and over and over again.
yes, i found wisdom there too! thanks all for the comments.
I am also so glad to read MA’s thoughts. MA, you have such a way of always getting to the essence, the heart of a matter. Beautiful!
Wow, mysteryagain, that makes me feel really good.