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Sugar Dusted Croissants & Downgraded Roadtrips
Posted: Wednesday, July 11, 2012 by LePhilozophe inStaying positive about life isn’t the easiest thing to do. Not when we’re
wired to think that enough just isn’t, well, enough. We don’t want, nay,
can’t have “comfortable”, can we? No, because, see, that implies
failure. Whatever self-imposed criterion you’ve set yourself, comfortable is the
B-minus you got when you thought, nay, knew you deserved the A-plus
-complete with goldstar, smiley face and excessive use of the exclamation mark
for good measure. Comfortable means you’ve somehow failed to attain a certain
predetermined niveau; downgrading your expectation drastically (there goes that
gauge again) in order to settle for the next best thing. You won’t be there
for long though, you tell yourself, happiness is right around the
corner, and you’ll damn well keep an eye out for it while you ride this
comfortable phase out. Of course, nothing says road trip like a good playlist,
and courtesy of your constant pining, whining, and impudent quips about how you
deserve better to anyone who cares (or the poor sods unfortunate not to move quickly enough away and out of earshot), we’re set for a long one.
Are we there yet? No, now sit the hell down and learn a lesson.
Unlike your road trip however, this tirade has an actual point. Seeing off a loved one at the airport today, we decided to catch a quick croissant at the cafe, as there was still quite some time before they had to board their flight. We were well into a bout of jovial chatter when my eye happened to rest upon a beautiful woman sitting in a corner. Sat among a group of friends, she was delicately tucking into a salad, while she laughed and joked around with them. Any other time, I’d have regarded the tableau with perfunctory interest and carried on. But here, i found myself drawn to the scene and unable to look away.
You’ve no doubt come across a a photograph of what would seem an ordinary scene, but the more you study it, the more you notice something new about it, and the more you appreciate not only the scene, but also the person that had the presence of mind to capture it. This was exactly that feeling. In that one scene, i learned what i now know is probably one of my most significant life lessons. If i left that airport having learnt one thing, it was that i was to cherish being comfortable. I was to understand it for what it was; a necessity.
i was to be grateful for my status quo, however mundane i might have previously thought it to be; not because i felt i deserved more than what i am or have, but because at any moment, it could be taken away from me, and it would literally have been the best i'd ever had.
So i'd make the most of it. The whining would turn to gratitude, the pining for another gulp of air. Because that would mean another moment alive to appreciate it more.
You might be wondering what was so special about a beautiful woman, a salad and a group of friends. You might remember that i mentioned the way she was eating her salad. Delicately. At least, she tried to. In reality, she struggled, but the smile on her face told you otherwise. The smile told you she didn't have a care in the world. Not for the wheelchair she was sitting on, nor for her missing legs, and expressly not for the stumps where her arms should've been.
She was comfortable. And i was grateful for the presence of mind to capture it.
