Desire as disappointment

This weekend I was assisting at a convention in Philadelphia as a volunteer; I was investigating this convention possibly to be a vendor one day. Being a volunteer gave me an 'inside track' to the attendees as well as to the management.

This convention is hobby-driven; the attendees come from other states to pursue their hobbies, make purchases, hear speakers, and even obtain autographs from people within the industry. Thus, there is a vibrancy to the air: the interest and the desire comes from deep within each attendee.

One job I was given was to watch over a line of people waiting to speak to a famous industry professional. My job was to stand at the end of the line with a sign that stated the end of the line: the professional had only a finite amount of time with the line. It was my job to politely end the line.

What I noticed was that many people tried to cajole me to allow them to join the line. This was very understandable: they missed the window of time to enjoin the line. What I surprised me was the reactions to the end of the line. Grown adults were actually pouting, pushing out a quivering lip of disappointment. They looked at me with forced sad eyes, and even tried to convince me that their entire weekend would have been a waste if they didn't look this one man in the face for 25 seconds and an autograph.

My head was a whirl of thoughts: not only did the convention offer 3 full days of programming, activities, quality vendors, other professionals for lectures and signings, and comeraderie, but these folks were actually allowing their disappointment to color their weekend. Over and over they would return to me to stand and sulk, a "boo-boo-face" curling their lip. I can only assume that they believed that their sulking was going to influence me to let them into line. (Little did they consider that I could not let every person who sulked into line).

Their desire for this one signature was overtaking their ability to enjoy the rest of the weekend; so much so that they were convincing themselves that the weekend was a complete bust if they didn't do this one signature event.

We all create value to events, activities, objects, and people in our lives. This is a human fact. We create our own value systems, and each person's value doesn't always match another's. Values are good. Values are internal barometers of who we are and what is important to us.

However, "value" is taken to a new degree when desire is added: the desire which says, "If I don't get this thing that I am desiring, my life is somehow limited, reduced, or devalued." This is seen in many ways: people who sulk about their wardrobe if it doesn't have designer labels, people who are depressed because they want a fancy car and they only have a 'regular' car, people who can't get their spouses to do what they want them to do. This means that we get so very attached to the idea of the object.

It is fine to appreciate something, someone or an activity: it means that we find it valuable. We may even try to move closer to it, investigating if it works well in our lives. What hurts is when we decide that our desire for it overrides our peace: we are miserable if we don't get that thing. Our lives somehow go down the drain because we are unfulfilled from our desire.

The Buddhists discuss that it is attachment to something we desire which causes our suffering. It is not our value of that object, event or person which causes the suffering; it is that we feel that without those things, our lives are belittled, wincing, limping in its absence. Their philosophy is simple: stop being attached. This doesn't mean we de-value things (or people) in our lives; it's that we see the value and stop thinking our lives are belittled without it. We can appreciate a relationship, a situation, or a thing, but we shouldn't stake our happiness on obtaining it - and being disappointed if it doesn't come to us.

The Judeo-Christian tradition has a similar manner of considering this: they say to pray about the circumstance and then let God decide whether you should receive it; release your desire to the Divine. The faithful continues to pray, but scripture says that God decides what's good for the pray-er anyway. In this case as well, the "active" desire still doesn't help. Scripture says, essentially, to release the attachment... the pray-er's responsibility was upheld to communicate to the Divine, and that was accomplished; the obtaining of the desired situation is considered secondary to the process of considering, appreciating, and then praying/communication.

The reality is, that we don't always get what we desire.

Back to the "boo-boo faces": perhaps they will learn balance in their desires. If the loss of one 25-second meeting with a busy professional can ruin their weekend (or week), what could a vast illness do to devestate them? Or a house fire? Or a traffic accident? If they don't learn to mitigate their desires, how would they learn to deal with real problems in more difficult circumstances?

A line floats into my head from a favorite movie, The Princess Bride: "Get used to disappointment." The words describe how we need to learn to deal with the less-optimum circumstances in our lives. If we deal with the less-optimum situations of our lives, might we also have gratitude for what we do have, what we do encounter, and what is within our grasp without "hoping"? I'm not saying we should be without hope; I'm just suggesting not to be attached to what we wish for, in case we don't get it.

Having perspective on ourselves, our lives, our belongings, our relationships, is how we grow and become peaceful.