As if you had chosen it
You already know I’m fond of internet memes that contain great quotes or lines of poetry. I’ve also mentioned, or maybe only implied, that I’ve been working hard to accept whatever comes. But a meme I saw last week jolted me into awareness that acceptance needs to have two parts: first accept—then act.
The jolt in this Eckhart Tolle quote for me is the idea of accepting everything that’s thrown at me as if I had chosen it. In the past, when I’ve struggled to accept the challenges that I, as an adult, acknowledge will inevitably disrupt my beautiful life, it’s been a matter of trying to drop resistance—being like a rock on the beach and letting the waves crash over me. Breathe. Let it be. This too shall pass.
Something else I’ve realized is that my grandmother’s favourite saying—“this too shall pass”—doesn’t only apply to storms and heartbreaks. Everything too shall pass. Happiness comes and goes, like waves rolling in and receding. Youth, beauty, pleasure, pain, life all pass away. Joy is to be found in accepting and opening to all of it.
But how do I accept what I never would have chosen in a million years as if I had chosen it? How do I go beyond dropping my resistance, beyond learning how to not work against it and actually work with it?
That’s where creativity is born, I suspect.
Sand sculpture photo by netadssell
One Response to “As if you had chosen it”
yes…