Flexibility

“You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf.”
Swami Satchitananda

I can’t say it any more clearly than that.

I came of age in the 60’s and the 70’s, when the Serenity Prayer was becoming a bit of a cliché. That powerful mantra that helped so many people get their lives back from all sorts of addiction and abuse felt trite; and so it receded into a cobwebbed corner of my mind.

It’s time to dust it off. We must be flexible and resilient enough to accept what we cannot change, and seek not only the courage but the tools to change the things we can. (The wisdom to know the difference requires advice from someone at a pay grade higher than mine, so I’ll let that one alone. :))

Stop trying to fight the waves. They’ll keep coming. You’ll have bad days, you’ll always be the wrong flavor of the month for someone, and roadblocks will seem to come out of nowhere. Wring your hands and sulk for a minute to get it out of your system. Then learn to surf.

We can only embrace what’s in front of us. No one will ever give us definitive answers to our problems, and there is no way to please everyone. Stay loose and let it go.

“Live your questions now, and perhaps, even without knowing it,
you will live along some distant day into your answers.”
Ranier Maria Rilke