View over Andaman

My epiphany is: Life is better when you are not an asshole.

This came to me while dining with my two daughters on the deck of a Mexican restaurant facing the Andaman sea. I had been to this restaurant twice before, two and five years ago and both times left feeling ripped off by the bad service and overpriced mediocre food. I’m not sure why I even suggested we go there that night except I knew the girls would want to go for our western meal of the day and I preferred mediocre mexican food over pizza. There was nothing really better about the food or the service, except the it was better. After a few minutes focusing on my 6 and 11 year olds, the food they wanted and the banter they wanted, the realization hit me. Everything was better because I let go of the frustration and that enabled me to enjoy the moment.

Wait, you say, if the service is bad and the food not of good value then you are not being an asshole if you complain about it. I get that. But it is your choice to get angry about it and let that anger impact the time you are having and maybe even impact how your daughters will relate to men when they get older. This doesn’t mean you just have to accept bad situations. A couple of nights later we went to a more upscale Italian restaurant facing the same sea. We were seated with menus. No one came by to take our order for several minutes. We flagged down a waiter who asked us to wait another minute. We did. And then we got up and walked out. The maitre’d asked if something was wrong and I told her we didn’t want to wait that long. I explained to the kids that at a restaurant like this you expect the service to be good and it wasn’t so we should go to another place. No anger, no assholeness coming out.

The trip had a few of these moments where I would have been angry before. This time not so much. Which felt good since there was trepidation taking my daughters by myself on vacation. I had some signs from everest that I was on high alert; making sure flights are on time, hotel reservation is for the right days, and so on. But I never got angry. Maybe once. During our snorkelling expedition. We went out on a speedboat and the water was pretty rough causing a couple of people in the crowded boat to get sea sick. When the boat stopped, I had my girls walk in front of me to climb down the back of the boat. The ocean swells were still pretty strong and I was trying to take in all conditions around me. Personal alert status high. As the girls got to the back of the boat a new middle age mom said and gestured to me that I should tie my youngest’s hair back behind her haid. Pissed me off. Didn’t help that the woman reminded me of my ex wife. Outgoing and thinking nothing of bringing a six month old baby on a speedboat snorkeling trip. I said “Thanks for the tip” and whispered “fuck you”.

So I did get a bit angry there and I felt a bit bad about it. So, good, I still have some work to do.