Monday, November 12, 2012

Calculating the Past

If the only way for you to move forward in life is to make perfect sense of what happened in the past then you will never live into the best of each day.

Our constant need to figure out why things happened the way they did (so we can engineer a perfect outcome in the future) brings no guarantees.  It only gives the illusion that our anxiety and worry are actually assets.

We are attracted to our over-scrutinizing-trend-predicting way of thinking because it constructs a world where we are in control.  Yet there is only one truth to this addictive way of operating:  we are not.

Every day situations arise, events unfold and others behave, in ways that we could not have predicted, expected or ever thought possible.  Sometimes we are surprised with joy and other times we are shocked in horror.  Trying to make sense of the things that leave us perplexed only captivates us to the past.

The conduit for real freedom is not found in the firm over-analyzing closed grip of the past but, paradoxically, in the open handed posture of awareness and mystery.  No problem to solve, no history to construct just the attentive nature that allows us to wonder, honor, and marvel at all that life brings.

This is not a passive approach where we resign ourselves to the gods as they see fit.  Rather this is an active co-participation (a giving, a receiving and giving again) with Life Itself.

It’s in the past.  What’s done is done.  Wonder.  Awe.

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