“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” ~ Lao Tzu
We’re a peculiar species, we humans; we think we know everything, when really, we know nothing.
Unlike other species, who are driven by natural, primal instincts, we like to plot, plan and control our lives to such a degree that if they fail to live up to our imaginary projections (which they are likely to) we are often left in a state of despair.
We pin so much hope on what we think our lives should, or want our lives to look like, that when the inevitable twists and turns steer us off course or pull the carpet from under our feet, it can leave us feeling out of control and in a heap of tears and why me?s.
The truth is, our lives are not destined to go exactly the way we want them to. If everyone lived out their childhood dreams, we’d all be astronauts, or living in castles with Prince Charming. Life can be a bitch sometimes.We imagined it would all be so easy; we plotted our grand six-figure career, our whirlwind romance, our 2-4 children, a dog, and a happily-ever-after ending. But it doesn’t tend to work out the way the movies would have us believe.
What really happens is, we lose our job, our relationship breaks down, we feel lost, we are let down, we lose a loved one. Life throws us lemons and we have no idea what to do with them, let alone how to make lemonade.
Perhaps a handful of people will actually stick the course and live a life they had always imagined, but for most of us, life can be one confusing and sometimes messy place, where we feel a little bit lost at times and can leave us pondering what it all means.
I lead a fairly unconventional life, with a tendency to live impulsively and from the heart. I am aware that this is not — by any means — a conventional existence (who liked conventional anyway?), but it’s my existence.
It wasn’t what I had planned or imagined, and so far it has been a bumpy old ride, but a ride full of lessons and experiences which have shaped the person I am today. And I wouldn’t take one crazy, sometimes painful, always meaningful, bit of it back.
If you had told the girl at the front of her English Class, who was destined to study History of Art at University and go on to work as a journalist in London, get married and settle down, that one day I would be living on a small Indonesian Island, selling vintage clothes barefoot and swimming with turtles, I probably wouldn’t have believed you.
I’d never have predicted that an impulsive one-way ticket to Australia would lead to me living on an olive farm in the Hunter Valley, building fires and making friends with animals I’d never encountered before. And that, this experience would lead to my decision to become a vegan and an animal rights activist.
You see, Life has a funny way of doing its own thing regardless of whether you a) wanted it to happen or b) imagined in a million years it was going to. We can try and whittle our lives down to produce a bespoke future; we can dream of plans and ideas which we think would be the ‘right’ thing to do, or the ‘best’ thing for us.
But life has a sneaky way of proving that it knows best and that actually we are pretty clueless.
It will therefore seek to prove this to us by regularly plonking us into situations which force us to question everything we thought we knew, while simultaneously teaching us everything we need to learn at that time to help us become the best version of ourselves.
A wise man once said, “The key to happiness is to let each situation be what it is, instead of what you think it should be.” There couldn’t be a more simple or profound way of summing it all up; in order to stay sane, it’s important to remember that Life Just Is and that it carries on regardless of our assumptions, actions or expectations.
We suffer when reality doesn’t match our expectations. When we project what we want to see onto something or someone that already is, we feel bad, angry, or hurt when it doesn’t match up.
But it is our decision to create these expectations, therefore it is also our choice to let go of them and learn to see everything and everyone exactly for what or who they are. By letting go of our preconceptions, we can save ourselves the pain of our own self-deception.
Hindsight is always a beautiful thing, and when we look back, we can often gain some much needed perspective. Events in our lives which seemed to provoke chaos at the time, ended up being our greatest lessons and our most valuable opportunities for change and growth.
If we can preempt that valuable lesson by reminding ourselves in the moment, that life always unfolds the way it does for our best interest, whether we want it to or not, then we can gain a huge sense of peace amidst times of unexpected change.
To Let Go is the most important thing we can do for ourselves in this lifetime. To let go of fears about the future, of preconceived ideas of what our lives will, or should look like further down the line, of the need to control every detail of our lives and the people in them, and to just let things be.
To let go is to liberate ourselves and to find a sense of harmony in the moment, as our lives unfold naturally and spontaneously.
This being said, there is beauty and necessity in dreaming and having goals, without which we might be wandering aimlessly in circles, scratching our heads. But the difference is that dreams and goals are fluid and hold promise, they are open to change and negotiation and they keep our passions alive and our spirits hungry.
We don’t always get exactly what we want, but we always get precisely what we need. Sometimes the two are unrecognizable from each other. We will always encounter the experiences, people and situations which are the very best for the evolution of ourselves and our consciousness. This much is true.
Our hearts have an instinctual knowing for what is best for us, at all times. If we can learn to listen to their whispered truth, we can learn to live in a way which is lead more by our intuition, rather than the imagined logic of the mind. When we face an unexpected situation, we can choose to see it with different eyes, and arm ourselves with a new perspective.
What we gain is the strength that comes from facing pain and moving through it, to find what lies beyond it.
To surrender to the moment and to see it exactly as it is means we can navigate our way through life with more ease, with less stress, less heartache, less feelings of despair or desperation when things appear to go wrong. Because nothing really goes wrong, it just goes a different way to how we thought it should.
There is true freedom and liberation in letting go and accepting life in all its wonderful, unexpected, messy glory, rolling with the punches and finding the hidden lessons amongst it all.
And I promise you this: life will happen, and if you can find your silver-lined cloud in the midst of the storms, it will all be so worth it in the end.
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