My Way or My Pain

Yesterday I got a phone call from my friend. She wanted my help to buy a watch. Could she have bought it on her own? Of course. But it was a nice way of making a contact; for us to go watch-shopping together. We quickly found a watch that met her specifications. It had to be a dial watch, not a digital face. It needed to be attractive but plain. No date, time, alarms, etc. for her. It must be a quality brand—preferably Seiko. It had to be “waterproof.” Money was not a question. She expected to pay $200 or so. We quickly found her watch at Costco—after considering other vendors, including Amazon, the jewelry store in the mall, etc. It actually was not Seiko, but Citizen, an equally well considered competitor of Seiko of equally high reputation.

That got me to thinking about my own watch. I purchased a fancy-looking watch just a few months ago. It had both digital and dial display. But I’ve never really been happy with it. The dial display is large and hides the digital, and the hour and minute hands are almost the same size, so it takes me a bit of concentration to decide if it is ten minutes after three or 15 minutes after two. It does display the day and date, but those are tiny and almost hidden behind the dial hands. In other words I was quite dissatisfied with my purchase, but I had spent $60 on it and I was just going to suffer through.

Getting my friend’s watch though, convinced me that I needed to stop spending so much of my mental energy both reading the watch and being dissatisfied. It was time for me to find a watch that would do what I want. Unlike my friend, my budget was $25-50. I considered carefully what I want and it was almost the opposite of my friend. I like the digital display. I wanted it large, though not enormous, so that I did not waste mental energy and distraction having to search for the time. I also wanted the date and it had to have a dial that could light up in the dark. It did have to be wearable in the water, but not to 100 meters. I haven’t been below 10 feet in the water for years. I quickly found a Timex for $30.

My point is that we had almost opposite specifications. Both held to them very strongly. Both of us are right—for ourselves. And both are self-indulgent. Another friend used to say, “That’s why they make chocolate, strawberry and vanilla ice cream.” In other words there is no right or wrong in most arenas of life. Thinking that my way is the only right way—even for my own toys—is self-defeating. Life is better when we don’t demand that it be a certain way, but have an attitude of acceptance. I’m not saying that all desire causes unhappiness. But absolutely insisting on my life preferences does.

One of my teachers talked about “low frustration tolerance.” Some people not only are frustrated by occurrences that don’t suit their prejudices, but descend into an attitude that “can’t stand it if my desires are not met.” It is obvious that we can stand it. If we couldn’t, we would just have to commit suicide. Most people don’t do that so the belief that “I can’t stand it" is just wrong. (I’m not saying that it is wrong to have strong preferences, only that we cause ourselves pain when we absolutize them.)