Dear Diary, I once again made my life worse by putting forth effort.
We all have within us an inherent nature. While the more we try to describe that nature, the more we fail to grasp completely, we can feel it internally, and we can understand our differences from one another. We should follow our true selves and let happiness develop organically, as opposed to trying to force things to happen. I, however, sincerely want only a few things and keep falling in the trap of trying to make those few things happen. Akin to pushing water uphill, my efforts are often futile, stressful, and cause more messes to clean.
My life has an overwhelming history of being unkind. It is difficult for me not to step in and ensure a positive outcome when given an opportunity. Unlearning the habit that leadership means hands-on initiative is not easy. I imagine for many people unlearning habits aren’t pleasant. We all have ingrained things in us that are counter-productive to our overall success, peace, or happiness. It is possible for things to work out on their own. A river flows from the mountain to the sea without the assistance of a person. The river does not need to be straightened or sped along; the river is perfect as it is.
It is challenging to allow non-action to be the path I travel. I cry I yearn, I try, I ponder, I yield, and I dream. I greet the morning sun and sit quietly with the songbirds as they eat the seed I put out for them. The song I have playing is such a happy tune, and the weather outside is bright and welcoming. The birds fluttering about, the trees growing their leaves once more, and the shades of green should pierce through this feeling of impending doom. However, as the familiar feeling of silent tears rolling down my face happens once more, I find myself wondering what to do about it.
I turn my music up ever so slightly and smile at the seagulls flying by. They aren’t as common a sight compared to the songbirds. I exhale slowly and take a sip of my water. There isn’t anything to do but let things work themselves out. Success is as dangerous as failure and hope as hollow as fear. Neither abstract optimism nor deep cynicism does me any favors, so I try to take a mental non-action approach with those as well. I long since have given up the ‘it could be worse’ approach too, that rarely does anyone any good trying to see whose mind is the most warped then. I try to take things as they are with a little bit of ‘it could be better.’ Let’s arc towards improvement.
It is the arcing towards improvement without grabbing the bull by the horns where I run afoul. I have yet to find the balance of letting things be and believing things can work themselves out without needing to having to do everything myself. I am trying by not trying, a concept for some people may sound like philosophical nonsense but is instead returning to our inner natures and developing trust. Trust is supremely challenging to build and maintain in a world full of negative headlines, terrible experiences, and routine setbacks. It feels easy to point to something negatively reinforcing and want to give up or feed into a negative feedback loop. As such, people like me try too hard or overcompensate somewhere else.
The adage goes ‘two wrongs don’t make a right,’ and that’s what I’ve been doing. Instead of being my authentic self, I’m only a novice in that department anyway; I’ve been trying to assert myself unnecessarily. Instead of trusting in a positive outcome where I am a component in a much larger system, I fear anything I can not control because of all the times an adverse outcome has occurred while ignoring any positive result. Letting go, I find, yields greater results but feels counter-intuitive to so much that has been drilled into me, yet some of my fondest memories are of things I cannot control.
I have so much more to learn, so much more progress to make, so much more to let go.
Monk Anchorwind – 2 May 2020