Expectations – Baby Style

I’m beginning to think that I should have named this blog “Lessons from a Baby” instead; who would have guessed I could learn so many? Yesterday we had a lesson in patience – a 2 hour wait in a doctor’s waiting room. (Is that why they call them that?)

Paul, of course, was reasonably good in the waiting room. He had Mommy and Daddy, a few nice toys, a doting aunt, and a quiet room. When he was hungry, he got to eat, and there were usually interesting people to talk to. What more could a baby want?

The office staff, of course, commented on how ‘good’ he was, and one made the comment that he was “a lot more patient than some of our adult patients”. (Is that why they call them that?)

I thought to myself, of course he is! There was nothing at all to make him unhappy or uncomfortable, (it is really a very nice waiting room) and, perhaps more pertinent, he had no expectations – of how long he would be there, of things he intended to get done afterwords, of what would happen that afternoon at all. He was being a baby and living in the moment.

My mother always said that it was Expectations – with a capital E – that made a lot of life’s disappointments and frustrations. If you did not Expect a certain thing, she would tell us, you would not have trouble being content when it did not come.

Paul’s sweet acceptance of our re-organized afternoon reminded me of the verse where that other Paul said, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content”. He had learned – to live in the moment, to not Expect any particular thing out of life – to be content. He had learned to accept what his Heavenly Father gave him, as sweetly as my baby accepted playing in the waiting room instead of his own living room – without question, trusting the mind and heart of one greater.

I want to learn that too.

Tags: baby, contentment, happiness, selfishness, trust