Life is full of situations. I recently experienced a bit of setback at work. Basically, it’s a situation of dealing with demanding bosses and differences of opinions. Sounds pretty common, right? There are many things that just seem to be obstacles in our daily lives. But when I dug deeper and really started paying attention, I found a different side to all these challenges. Maybe there’s another way to experience these challenges?
When we resist life, life becomes challenging. What does this mean? When things don’t go our way, more often than not we feel frustrated and let down. This is because we are resisting what life has presented to us. The reality is different to the script we had in mind. What is ‘supposed to’ happen or ‘should’ happen simply didn’t. This is resistance to life. We don’t want to accept it for what it is. ‘Why do I have to deal with her?’, ‘What is wrong with these people?’, ‘What was he thinking?’ are just a few glimpses of what is taking place in our daily lives. The reality is, there are too many forces at play and we simply can’t change the outer world so a better approach would be to stop trying to change all that. All the narratives we add onto those situations should also stop because that is a downward spiral and we are not really helping anyone with that kind of mentality either.
It is true that in many cases we cannot change what’s happening in front of us, not immediately anyway. But the thing is, we don’t need to. This is not to say that we ignore all the wrongs or injustices in the world and pretend they are not there. No. We simply acknowledge them for what they are but we don’t put too much attention on them, we don’t add any unnecessary narrative or interpretation to those situations. Instead, we re-focus our attention on small things we have immediate control over, such as appreciating having a roof over our head or enjoying a nice cup of tea. A meditative state in which the mind does not chatter is also very helpful. The key is to not resist the ‘big’ challenges but to focus on the ‘small’ wins. The more we practise this, the easier it becomes until eventually we reach a state where we actually would see positive changes in our lives and the outer world. This is the magic of non-resistance.
We tend to get too hung up on what we can see. But what we see isn’t always the ultimate truth and won’t actually be that way forever. The title of a famous George Harrison album, All Things Must Pass, serves as a great reminder of the impermanence of worldly matters. Moreover, there is a huge part within each one of us that is intangible and can’t be seen and that is really where we should focus our attention on. The more we explore, the more we will realise that it’s a treasure trove of joy and wonderful surprises.