Saying yes to life

Development and growth take place in the daily, sometimes monotonous commitment to our goal, while we think nothing is happening. To have the patience it takes to reach any worthy goal, we need to softly “detach” daily from the outcome, releasing our expectations, without losing sight of where we are heading. I find that this is the fine line between setting our objective, versus going through the motions each day without a purpose. One path takes us towards our goal, the other keeps us in the same level just going around in circles.

No matter which road we choose to take, we will find one day our tools will not be enough. We will have to choose between more of the same or broadening our vision. We might resist, because changing seems too time consuming, difficult and unknown. But the price we pay for not being open to another perspective, is way too high. When we look back, the road that seemed too long for us to invest in, ends up the only one that led to our goal.

How many of us have been too afraid of choosing to invest that kind of time, money, and effort to change our perspective and way of doing things? Most of us had to find that we had ran out of choices. We need to feel lost perhaps to believe the more difficult path is feasible. At times such as these, we are given one of the greatest gifts. We are guided as if by a gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) hand, towards a path we would have never willingly chosen. If we are so lucky to have no other choice, if we are able to “give in” and say YES to change, although not easy, the path will be worth every effort we make.

We fight change because nobody likes to feel vulnerable. To make a radical course correction, we need to be willing to be vulnerable, we need to be willing to be open to another way of seeing and doing things. This other way is not going to be comfortable, maybe for a long time. We walk in the dark with the faith and hope that this will lead us to our goal, yet we don’t know for sure. It is often that we lose faith right before the dawn and give up, going back to our known way, to where we are comfortable because we can not sustain it. Questioning gets the best of us and keeps us trying different things, never fully getting us to our desired destination.

Every investment we make towards that change, even if we are not able to see it through, is not a loss however. Growth happens in “spirals”more than in neat graphs that look like mountain ranges. We may feel we are back in the same place, but any investment we have made in changing our perspective, has helped us to see at least something in a different way. We need to be kind to ourselves and to others as we journey. We may choose the long road towards our goal depending on our personality or unconsicous mandates we carry. It is all part of the process which becomes our story. In the end, what we are willing to surrender will be proportional to how far we go. And if we look at life in this way, whether or not we reach our goal is not a measure of success, as much as our vulnerability and openness to saying yes to life.