This is a guest post by Mark, blogger at Soul Shelter
“A thing is sometimes added to by being diminished and diminished by being added to.” — Tao Te Ching (XLII; 96)
Generally these days, we Americans aren’t too good at moderation. While certain episodes in our national history (frontier settlement, The Great Depression, and the lean times of rationing during WWII) remind us that ours is a heritage of toughness and sacrifice, the modus operandi in our contemporary age of prosperity entails eating, shopping, driving, working, and being entertained — all in excess.
This puts us in stark cultural contrast to other thriving western nations. Take France, whose people work less, vacation more, and enjoy higher rates of personal fitness. Most coffee drinkers in France, heirs to the world’s finest café culture, find the demitasse espresso sufficient for their morning pick-me-up. In the States, on the other hand, we demand triple-shot double-grande caramel macchiatos. And where the French café-goer takes his coffee in cup and saucer because he values sitting as much as sipping, the American gets his grande on the go, the enormous paper cup a product of his perpetual motion (and a wasteful one at that).
We lack moderation not only in our styles of ingestion and consumption, but in our tireless ambition. Success is the holiest deity of our national cult — and our fixation upon success is, of course, good and bad.
I am certainly not without ambitions. Abundant opportunity and good ol’ fashioned bootstrapping self-reliance appeal to me as much as to the next guy. In fact, I’ve spent the last eight years, virtually without pause, in thrall to my own dreams and aspirations. I regret none of that time, and have achieved my own modicum of success — and an even greater deal of fulfillment. Hard work and dogged perseverance certainly have their place.
But recently, while chatting across the back fence with a neighbor about our impending parenthood, my wife and I were the beneficiaries of some lovely (and unconventional) advice: “Lower your expectations.”
With this wise directive our neighbor, a fulltime parent of two youngsters, was encouraging us to be realistic about our own goals once our baby arrived — in other words, to practice moderation in our personal ambitions. Lower expectations, our neighbor advised, would help us “stay sane,” and would keep us in the moment.
The advice, so wonderfully unique, has stayed with me. I’ve long advocated moderation where the dining table, the wallet, the automobile, or the church was concerned. But as for practicing moderation in my vocation, I could do better. I could strive to better balance work and life. I could take care to see that my passion doesn’t become compulsion. And what better time to seek such moderation than during the first months of my first-born’s life, when there’s so much happening that I don’t want to miss?
So I’m working on it. I’m reminding myself, daily, of the value (counterintuitive as it may be) in sometimes lowering my expectations, in not demanding so awfully much of myself.
Lao Tzu, the sage author of the Tao Te Ching, puts it this way:
“Too much store
Is sure to end in immense loss.
Know contentment
And you will suffer no disgrace;
Know when to stop
And you will meet with no danger.
You can then endure.” (XLIV; 108)
Here’s to heeding Lao Tzu and “knowing contentment…”
译文:
有些时候,期望值低一些未尝不是一件好事
物或损之而益，或益之而损。——《道德经》（第四十二章）
总体上来说，我们美国人都不太青睐保持中庸的态度。当民族历史中的那些插曲（比如边境战争、大萧条以及二战期间的精简配给）不断提醒我们，我们民族的发展是建立在无数艰难与牺牲之上时，现在的人们却坚信如果想要把一个国家建设得繁荣昌盛，那就必须要不断发展饮食、购物、交通、产业和娱乐行业——但是，似乎一切都做得过头了。
正是这样一种错误的理念，使得我们的民族文化与其它蓬勃发展的西方国家的文化形成了鲜明对比。就以法国为例好了，法国人工作时间比我们少、旅行度假比我们多，总体上他们个人健康指数也比我们高。大多数法国的咖啡爱好者似乎都继承到了这世上最精妙的咖啡文化，发现了足以在清晨令他们提神醒脑的黑咖；但是另一方面，我们国家的爱咖者却只会喝喝那些焦糖玛奇朵咖啡而已。并且，当法国的爱咖者将闲坐的价值视同如啜饮的价值同等重要时，他们往往喜欢拿着杯子和碟子驻足停留、享受惬意；但是我们美国人却不停地走在我们所谓的建设国家的道路上，也正是因为我们这种一尘不变的动机使得成千上万的纸杯被大肆生产（却也由此产生了大量浪费）。
不仅是因为我们摄入和消耗的方式，同样也是因为我们永远不知满足的野心，最终导致了我们缺乏一种中庸、闲适的态度。只许成功的理念似乎为我们这个民族所信奉，但是，这样一种信念的设定同样也是对错参半的。
当然，我也并非全无野心，但是就我个人而言，野心是与机遇以及自力更生这种虽然过时但是仍然为我推崇的精神同等重要的。事实上，在过去的8年里，我真的是马不停蹄的全身心投入，试图实现我的梦想和愿望。对于这8年光阴，至今我都不曾感到后悔，虽然我只获得了一点点成功，但是我却感到了一种无与伦比的满足感。刻苦的精神与持之不懈的努力自然在这8年中占据了不可或缺的地位。
但是就在前阵子，当与一墙之隔的邻居闲聊我们即将成为人父人母一事时，我和妻子就收益于一条不错的（但是与传统相悖的）的建议，那就是要“降低一些我们对于孩子期望。”
正是受益于这位明智又直白的邻居，使得我们这两位全职的年轻父母，能够鼓励自己就我们对于这个即将到来的孩子期许方面，能够变得更加切实一些。换言之，也就是能够更加温和中庸的制定自己的目标。正如我们的邻居所建议的那样，降低一点期许，会帮助我们变得更加理智，也会帮助我们即使在有了孩子以后也能保持现状。
这条建议，虽然如此独特，但是却一直伴随我直到现在。长时间以来，我就一直在很多地方，比如餐桌上、金钱上、汽车上以及教堂里提倡说我们要保持这种中庸的态度。但是，如果是在我的职业范围内实行这种中庸的态度，我就可以做的更好。我努力地试图做到在事业与生活之间保持平衡，而我也努力不约束自己、让自己能够随心所欲，而且我觉得，实行这种中庸态度的最佳时机莫过于就是在我的第一个孩子刚刚出生的那几个月里，在这段时间里，真的发生了太多我一生都不想错过的事情。
所以，我会继续坚持这种态度，每天都会不断提醒自己，在某些时候，降低期待值、不要过于苛求自己是多么的重要。
老子，《道德经》的作者，是这样表达这个理念的：
祸莫大于不知足；咎莫大于欲得。故知足之足，常足矣。（《道德经》第四十六章）
大家可以去阅读一些老子的文章，了解他、了解“知足常乐”！