One of the world’s archetypical stories is as we wander, struggle, grapple with how to make sense of our world, it turns out that, in the end, we can only know our own life through the effect it has on others. Seeing that, we experience a unique kind of joy, one that is the product of self-forgetfulness.
In my own experience there is evidence that I can gauge my life experience on any given day by the degree of attention paid to myself by me. When I am focused on my problems, my goals, my shortcomings, my wins—there is a worried, fussy air about me. Other days, free and light, I come from a place of laughter and experience life as flowing and sustaining with all I need available to me at the very moment I realize the need.
Through the ages those of genius in the area of human experience, have clearly indicated that it is through loss of self that life is found.
Yet in my profession, there is a mandate to serve people by helping them "find and nurture themselves." In order to do this, it is vital that we become aware of our thoughts, behaviors, and reactions with regard to life experiences. So where does the part about "losing" self come in? Is it beneficial to lose oneself? And if so, how can this be accomplished in a nondestructive way?
Many years ago I was sitting in my car outside a day nursery waiting for one of my children to come out the door. I had arrived a little early and was parked in such a way that gave me a view of the sandy nursery play ground. While I was watching the preschoolers play, a little boy headed toward the ladder of a slide at the same time that another child got the same idea. The second child, arriving seconds after the first, stiffened his arm and delivered a chest blow to the first child, who already had hold of the ladder railing. The shove sent him backward in the sand and I waited, filled with indignation for his treatment, for him to yell or cry or rightfully report the mistreatment to the nearest adult, demanding retribution from an authority. That is what needed doing considering the insult to self and his right to justice, I thought. But no, he simply picked himself up and after looking around a bit walked over to a toy truck and sat down to happily play with it.
This is what I think was going on: that child was young enough, and secure enough, to be unencumbered by a prideful need to avenge himself. In fact, he did not seem to think a thing at all of the whole experience. He was not attached to the outcome of his intent to slide. He was unfettered by the self awareness that would have kept him from enjoying that moment with the truck on that particular day of his life.
This may be what the ancients were aware of when they counseled self-forgetfulness as the way to joy.
When a lesson—such as the one demonstrated by that little boy some 25 years ago—sticks with me for years, I am sure it is important. I was taught to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. I was taught to never allow others to "take advantage" of me. But now, I am not so sure that my energy is well spent by protecting the self so much.
I know; I know. We can't just let people walk all over us. That would just be wrong and what a message it would send to others of how little we think of ourselves.
But then again, isn't thinking less often of ourselves precisely the point of good living? I wonder what a day would be like if I shrugged off every slight, every car that cut unfairly in front of me, every person who, self absorbed, needed to get up the slide first and took my turn.
Would it give me more time to play with my toy truck in the sunshine? What sort of a life experience would that amount to, anyhow?
