Mai pen rai

Thailand is pretty easygoing.  One often hears ‘mai pen rai’, a Thai expression that is elusive in it’s meaning but can be understood in English to mean any of the following:  no worries, it’s okay, it doesn’t matter, no problem, don’t worry about it, it is what it is, don’t sweat the small stuff, life goes on, there’s no use crying over spilled milk and... well basically it means to 'chill'. You will often hear this expression when something goes wrong or someone looses their cool. It is not meant negatively, as in “never mind, I’ll do it myself”, but, rather, as a reminder of what truly matters, as in “never mind; this too shall pass”. 

For those of you who know me personally, I have always had leanings towards this even-tempered complaisant philosophy and many have even been privy to my often stated one-liner rendition of it, “now-and-ten-years-from-now-is-but-a-speck-in-this-thing-we-call-eternity”. By the way, this dictum is not mine; I borrowed it from one of Wayne Dyer’s books, back in the 80’s when I was a lot into reading any self-help book (and there were an over abundance of them in the 80's) that I could lay my hands on. I was in my 30’s then, prime time for seeking self-help advise while I was in the throes of and navigating in life’s typical maelstrom of getting married, confronting parenthood, purchasing a house, establishing a home, climbing the social and professional ladder, and just being stuck in the hamster wheel of a typical disco-dancing, afro-coiffed 30 Something.  With time, I've morphed into more of a go-with-the-flow, mahayana type person. However, I readily admit that I haven't completely zenned-out and that I still have a long ways to go. If someone were to cut in front of me at Burger King (by the way, is queuing just a Canadian thing or what???) while I'm being afflicted by an acute and debilitating case of the hangrys, I would very much like to say that I have enough peace in me to just breath and say "mai pen rai", but the truth is I'd go ape shit crazy on the dude and probably steal his Chicken Bacon Meaty after throwing ketchup in his Whopper stuffed face.

It is not to say that Thailand is the first country in which we've encountered zen kinda psyche. We found hakuna matata, the Swahili phrase brought to our collective western psyche by a singing meerkat and warthog in the Lion King, was very much alive and well when we visited Kenya and were often reminded to take it easy because there were "no worries". During our sojourn in West Africa, Bintou, our salt of the African earth house keeper, often reminded us in Wolof to ndank, ndank (slowly slowly) whenever Madeleine and I would get strung up on something. Beyond a doubt, Africans are masters in shrugging off stress and anxiety. In Belgium and France, we often heard, C'est la vie, which, in fact is kind of surprising because you don’t often associate chillin' with the French. And then, my all time favourite chill admonition, I give credit to the Italians with their infamous, colourful, and just plain cute la merda succede, which as we all know means "Shit Happens!" 

So. although we’ve seen this elsewhere in the world, I find this easygoing complacent reaction to things gone awry more 'in your face' here in Thailand.  To use the type A and type B personality theory which describes two contrasting personality types, I would say that the Thais are more of the type B personality, a more relaxed temperament, while we westerners would be labelled type A, being more competitive, outgoing, ambitious, impatient and/or aggressive. So where do I fit in? Not sure.

However, as I slowly enter this more mellow stage of my life here in one of the more mellow parts of the world, I certainly don't miss some of the negative manifestations resulting from type A behaviours, just to name a few: road rage, stress related diseases, and that shameful bloated sense of entitlement. Equally, I do not miss any of the resulting necessary countermeasures that arise from trying to negate the more deviant type A behaviours, such as anger management, arbitration, law suits, and custody battles. Be that as it may, we're always going to have type A people and type B people in the world.   The type A people get frustrated by the type Bs and often vice versa. 

On the other hand, although in the west where type A thrives and where people may likely feel more rushed, stressed, and perhaps more irritable because they worry too much, let's not forget that the sense of urgency to get stuff done ensures exactly that - things do get done, and in most cases, efficiently! Sure, I may feel comfortable living in a Type B environment where no one ever seems to be in a rush, everyone trusts each other, seeing anyone actually getting mad at anything is a rarity and people just seem generally relaxed, but, do things ever get done? People here are always just shrugging off the negatives of life. There are no doubts many positives to having such a laid back attitude. It must be so refreshing and relaxing to be able to just take a deep breath, say "no worries" and not be controlled by the negatives. It does sound amazing, doesn't it?  

But then, on the flip side, is it that complacent attitude that keeps countries like Thailand 'developing', whereas it's the western world's go-go attitude that makes it 'prosperous'.  Hmmm... got to give that some more thought. Meanwhile, I'm just going to take life in stride, roll with the punches and be accepting of the little things life throws my way, reserving my passion for what matters to me most. Now excuse me while I just sit here and drink my caffeine-laden coffee... mai pen rai...