A couple of years back, a daft little video popped up on my Instagram feed that has stayed with me ever since.
The camera faces an open doorway inside a house, criss-crossed with Sellotape. Two infants toddle into view from stage-left, coming up against the sticky barrier. Their caregiver is behind the camera, earning smiles of anticipation, and it’s clear these two want to join them.
Toddler 1 sees the Sellotape as they approach, their smile slipping into anguish. After pushing against it – enough to know it’s not going to give – they crumple in tearful despair.
While Toddler 1 sobs their distress, Toddler 2 moves to stand beside them and assesses the situation with unruffled calm. Although the strands of tape are thickly criss-crossed, they see the sizeable gap beneath, drop to their belly and wriggle quietly underneath. Two seconds later, they emerge the other side.
Toddler 1 is too busy wailing to notice.
Now, why have these two little’uns stayed with me so long? Because I’ve become rather good over the years at seeing Sellotape everywhere – infuriated by obstacles I’ve pressed up against, convinced there’s no way around – and those toddlers helped me see the sheer absurdity of it. If I wasn’t so busy railing against the darn stuff, I’d notice the gaping opportunities beneath!
I’ll give you an example.
I was very ill while in Bali earlier this year. On the first day I felt well enough to venture from my sick bed, I visited the restorative ‘recovery’ area in the rather luxurious gym I’d joined (think thickly-mattressed sunbeds, full-body beanbags, sparkling recovery pools, birdsong soundtracks and restful water features). Ready to soothe my soul in a hammock of wellness and tranquility, I sank gratefully onto my sunbed.
Within seconds, I noticed a young man strutting about the space in his swim shorts, bare-chested with his laptop balanced on his forearm. He was pacing hither and thither, puffed up (I projected…) with his own self-importance, loudly conducting his Very Necessary Zoom Call.
I felt my sap rise.
At the same time, a lovely young Scandinavian couple was laughing in connected joy beside his sunbed. While I seethed with displeasure at Mr Puffer-Fish, simmering in my cauldron of resentment, they chatted and chuckled together in perfect contentment.
I continued to broil.
Soon enough, they decided to sunbathe and took down the sunshade they shared with him. He was instantly there, instructing them to put it back up because he needed it ‘to keep his laptop cool’.
Oh, how my outrage puckered and blistered!
‘How dare he?!’ I thought. ‘He’s not even using the damn sunshade while peacocking about like that, disturbing everybody with his bloody business call!’
But as I watched, hoping the Scandinavians would stand their ground, the opposite happened: without the slightest resistance, they nodded politely, put the shade back up and gathered their things, still happily chatting. Then they moved to the sunbed beside mine, where the shade was already down, and continued their merry afternoon.
After steeping a little longer, I couldn’t resist…
‘Excuse me,’ I asked in incredulous solidarity, ‘Did he just ask you to put the shade back up?!’
‘Oh, yes,’ the guy replied. ‘He needed it to keep his laptop cool’.
At last, a chance to fortify my internal stew! ‘What a cheek!’ I exclaimed triumphantly, ready to brandish my rage. ‘He’s been strutting around taking that bloody business call this entire time and hasn’t used his sunbed once!’
He looked at me with supreme neutrality, replying: ‘There’s no problem. We’re happy to move.’
Shame bloomed as I realised: I hadn’t asked him whether he was bothered; I’d decided he should be, and was delightedly handing him a ladle so he could join in my stew. I’d tried to recruit him into my outrage, and he’d politely declined. Blinkin’ Nora, he was about fifteen years younger than me and already fifteen years wiser!
That’s when I remembered the two toddlers.
Oh! I was Toddler 1.
While I’d been wailing at the Sellotape, those two cheerful Scandinavians had slipped effortlessly underneath.
And would you believe me if I told you the gym was called ‘Nirvana’?! Yes, indeed: there I was, literally lying in Nirvana, busy frothing, fixating and festering; shouting ‘no!’ at reality, and directing all my energy and focus at the one little thing I didn’t like among a feast of things I did.
Nirvana was all around me, and I could only see one bare-chested bozo with a laptop.
All hail Toddler 2!
