While having lunch at a restaurant one day, I glimpsed a couple with their toddler in a high chair 2 booths ahead and to my left. It’s not uncommon, but something that day brought a bit more insight into the workings of life and the world.
This little guy wanted something within his line of sight but not within his reach. He wanted it badly enough to get vocal. I know. That’s how I noticed him and his parents. Normally, I’d just go back to my food. On this particular day I was a deep in thought about a particular problem at work and how I would handle it. When I heard the toddler’s second vocalization, I noticed that he was very agitated by the fact that he couldn’t reach that salt shaker that was so tantalizingly close. So close, yet so far away. The more I watched him flailing and grasping, the more I saw identified with him.
Then I thought to myself, “How am I any different than him?” I can think of a few things that I can handle better than him, but after that there isn’t much else that I can claim greater superiority or mastery that can’t eventually be rectified with time and patience. I’m just like him. Only, I’m not flailing for a salt shaker. I’m reaching for something more intangible, but it’s something undiscovered and fascinating. The only thing that makes fascinating is that I haven’t gotten my paws on it yet. Once I attain it, will I tire of it as quickly as I when I first bore a desire for it?
While these thoughts circulated in my head, there was a little subtext in between my thoughts. I know that he’s not aware of the reason for his frustration, but I think it’s a subconscious frustration at his lack of mastery and control of himself. He’s not aware that the environment isn’t an extension of himself, but he want its to be so very badly. Then I think of myself, and I’m struck by that realization. My entire life I’ve wanted things to go “right.” I’ve always wanted it to be exactly the way I imagine it should. No! Must! When it didn’t, I reacted in manner similar to that toddler.