The Mind's Reset Button

Nirvana, bliss, atunement, grace— they’re never far away. As children most of us felt it many times a day. Not having much experience with the roller coaster of our emotional states, having no sophistication about what actually constitutes a setback, we were easily knocked off our bliss track by small things. But one of the beauties of a child’s heart is that it doesn’t immerse itself in "water under the bridge" for long.

One moment a youngster may be full of rage, the next she’s ready to enjoy the very person that made her mad. Why do we struggle so hard to maintain some attitude of upset— all to justify some previous emotional reaction? Defending reactions all day long is exhausting and crazy-making. Children know this instinctively.

Unlike many of us, a child has no interest in identifying with the supposed injustices done to her. Why pick at old hurts when there are good times to be had? So, even though many children are knocked off kilter easily, they also push their attitudinal reset buttons early and often and get on with their lives. Soon they are completely absorbed by a ladybug crawling up a geranium stem– even though their cheeks are still streaked with tears. No problem. Stuff happens but wonder reigns supreme.

By contrast our "grown-up" minds are always so busy reassessing our current status on the path toward a hundred arbitrary goals and scurrying from various dreaded outcomes that we make ourselves tired, old and disillusioned before our time. We'll enjoy ourselves when we're rich. Though the traffic may be moving smoothly and the car purring like a kitten and the morning beautiful and the coffee in our to-go cups delicious, we're not allowed to feel blissful because the workday hasn’t even begun yet and the weekend is days away.

It’s like that line from Annie Hall, when the woman at the party says, “It’s not that I can’t have an orgasm, it’s just that my analyst says it’s the wrong kind.” If there is even a smidgen of a chance that events aren’t going to go perfectly (a given), happiness gets put on hold. Of course, such mental habits guarantee a lifetime of anxiety and frustration. Still, who has the time and energy to gain the emotional skills that would eliminate such problems? That’s why Prozac was invented, right?

We’ve nurtured the downside of childhood (lack of perspective) and forgotten the upside (the bliss state reset button). It’s not that you’re incapable of having a wonderful morning, it’s just that your inner analyst says that this state of happiness you’re tempted to indulge is the wrong kind. It’s not the guaranteed lifetime warranty kind.

Whatever happened to grace under pressure? Sensitivity is good, but not like the princess and the pea— more like the sages in the Tao Te Ching that see the nature of the problem so well they see right through it. Like it wasn't even there.