"Ease is not a sin or an anomaly.
It is your natural state."
-- Alan Cohen
|
|
For a long time I was suspicious, but
now I think I am at least intellectually sold on the idea that ease is
our natural state. However, that is certainly not what we have been
taught through the ages. We have been taught the opposite. We've been
taught that if it is hard, it is a challenge and if we persevere
regardless of the difficulty, we become a hero, one who overcomes the
odds to win.
I am now persuaded--and it was not an easy task,
because I held on to the hero bit with vigor--yes, I am persuaded that
ease is the way. I know when that tidbit of enlightenment came upon me.
It was when I was given the metaphor of being in a rowboat and rowing
upstream fighting the current, or instead, allowing the current to take
me with ease. I have been persuaded that everything I want is
downstream, when I always thought it was upstream. No wonder life was
hard.
The next issue is my own resistance to the actual doing of
that little feat. Since I held on with vigor, the idea of putting the
oars in the boat was tantamount to failure, giving up. The shame of it
all. . . But, I am learning to think about ease being a good thing and
difficulty being something I would rather avoid. Of course, when you
think of it that way, it makes sense, doesn't it?
So now I am
having thoughts like, 'if this is difficult, it doesn't feel good or
right, so I must be resisting the easier way.' The first step is
awareness, right? The second step after assimilation is to practice it
and actually think. That shouldn't be any work either. I think that if
people are going to do a thing, it must be easy in order to be popular
and it sure helps to get things done!
Next time you're up against
a difficulty, or challenge, and you find yourself bucking up and rowing
upstream, try thinking about what you're doing and consider there may
be a far easier and more natural way to achieve the objective. It will
require more and more trust I think, but that will get easier and easier
with practice too.
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment