‘The measuring of worth and success in terms of time, and the insistent demand for assurances of a promising future, make it impossible to live freely both in the present and in the promising future when it arrives.
For there is never anything but the present. And if one cannot live there, one cannot live anywhere.’
–Alan W. Watts The Way of Zen
Sometimes asserting control over my surroundings works and I start to believe there is a right and wrong way to do things. That bad things only happen when you’re not paying attention. That if I could only juggle everything in the right and proper amounts everything will stay good. In these moments I think, wow, I must be really doing something right. I am succeeding in my life. I am really going places. And I will have a fleeting sense of self-satisfaction.
Then circumstances change (as they always do) and I have re-remember the flow.
Sometimes you’re ahead, and sometimes you’re behind– Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching
The flow is a difficult thing to put in words and perhaps impossible unless felt. I’m in it when coincidences happen. I’m in it when I let go of control and things still ‘work out’. Admittedly, when things are going well I forget about the flow and it is usually a rude reawakening that brings me back. But I always come back to it.
Things work out regardless of my input into the situation. I may feel better by acting and trying to assert my influence on the outcome of the situation because that’s how people work. Things happen how they happen and they rarely get better from my actions. Especially, when the actions are designed to make me feel better. Looking back on times of big change in my life I see that is true.
Letting go and seeing what happens.
