What Happens When You Stop Fighting Life?
Not that this is new to anyone, but there’s a natural flow to life. We’ve all experienced it, especially when we’re happily letting life do its thing.
And we’ve also all experienced what happens when we stop letting life do its thing.
When we want what we want, instead of wanting what life brings, we start to push against the flow. This is to lose touch with the natural rhythm and flow of life.
Life starts to feel difficult, disjointed and well… unflowy.
There’s an easy solution. It’s called letting go of what we want.
The instant that happens, we find ourselves back in the flow of life.
“Easy?!” you exclaim? “But I want what I want. I can’t just let go of it! If I could, I would have done that already.”
True. But all that really means is that you value what you want more than you value being in the flow.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting things. There’s also nothing wrong with going after the things you want.
The trouble comes if/when your life has become a struggle day in and day out because you’re trying so hard to make it turn out exactly how you want it as opposed to following and accepting its natural course.
You may be trying to achieve certain end results that aren’t necessary at all for your happiness or well-being, but you’ve convinced yourself that they are. Meanwhile, life is giving you exactly what you need.
This doesn’t mean you can’t still go after things, be persistent and reach your goals. But you can actually take the steps needed without straining and struggling.
I don’t mean to imply that achieving all your goals will be easy breezy. But usually, the strain and struggle come not because a task is difficult, but because we want certain results.
We tend to believe that if we try harder than before, we’ll achieve our desired results. But often times, that’s just not true… and sometimes the reverse is actually true.
Often the harder we try, the more strained our activity gets. And it shows.
When you finally reach the point where you value the flow more than you value what you want, you just do. One foot in front of the next. And you let go of the results.
There’s a simple ease and joy to life when it’s lived in the flow. And that’s not just because you happened to let go of what you wanted and the next thing you knew, you got everything you wanted after all — and life finally started going your way.
It could happen.
A much more realistic and likely scenario is that one day you sort of snap to attention and go, “Hmm… I’ve been wanting life to be what I’ve been wanting it to be ever since I can remember, and that really hasn’t accomplished anything other than to wear me out. I’ve had enough of the sheer effort of trying to make life cooperate with my agenda.
“I’m tired. Soooo tired. So totally and completely exhausted from all this struggle. It’s really not worth it anymore. It’s just not worth the fight.
“Who am I and what are my wants anyway, in the face of Life itself and Its master plan? I’ve kicked and screamed and fought my whole life and all it’s done is stressed me out and made me sick, serious and miserable.
“I’ve had enough, I give up! I give in! For once and for all, let life have its way!”
The miracle is that as soon as you genuinely get to this point, you’re free of the burden, weight and overwhelm of the struggle to change life by your sheer will. Other than that, things may not look much different than they did when you were fighting and struggling so hard.
No matter what’s happening, life is actually moving along just fine. It may hurt. It may be uncomfortable. It may not be anything like what you wanted. But even that is fine.
Life, in its full rainbow of colors, is what you came here for. And it’s more than good enough, just how it is.
