Day 54 (2008-04-28): Presumptive pleasure (Pleasure, Part 2)

For the past few weeks, I’ve been observing how I experience and relate to pleasure in my life. Recently, my five-year-old niece gave me some wise advice on this topic.

She and I were in the park and she spotted a cluster of dandelions. She asked if we could blow on them and make wishes. We did, and I asked her what she wished for (she likes to tell and not keep it a secret).

She said, “I wished that I could eat cake every day.”

She then asked me what I wished for, and I said, “I wished that today would be a fun day.”

She looked at me funny and then picked up another dandelion. We blew on them again, and I asked her what she wished for.

“I wished that I could be a princess,” she said.

She asked me what I wished for, and I said, “I wished that tomorrow would be a fun day, too.”

She looked at me disapprovingly and said, “That’s the same wish.” Then after a moment, she added matter-of-factly, “That will probably happen anyway. You didn’t need to wish for it.”

Wow. Out of the mouths of babes. The wisdom of what she said hit me, and I saw the world through her eyes in that moment. And I saw how different that world is than the one I see…

When she wakes up in the morning, she assumes that she will have fun that day.
When I wake up in the morning, I assume I won’t.

From my habitual perspective, fun is something special, something I need to plan for or strive to create. Could it be that it’s really just an attitude? Let me correct that. The word “just” is unfair and devalues how important attitude and perspective are.

She creates the attitude that life is fun. I struggle to create fun from an attitude that life is not fun. I’m eager to explore this more, to experience life with this “presumptive pleasure” perspective.