400 Days of Surrender — Day 16: Letting life unfold
New to this series? You can find Day 1 and why I’m writing this here.
Yesterday, after 15 days on the journey of surrender, I pulled the plug and put in notice for my flat. It was not easy and it needed to be done.
Without making that decision I would have continued reflecting and thinking whether this is the right decision, whether I’m really ready to let go of the comfort of my home and swap it for a nomadic life again not knowing where I will be in December and all of next year and thereafter.
But instead of ruminating about this for more days and weeks, I can now focus my energy and thoughts on what’s next. Where am I going to go first. When I woke up this morning, I felt apprehension about the decision but I decided to let it go, to move past it and let the day unfold rather than staying in my head.
After lunch, I went for a walk in the park and decided to chat with a friend about a project that we are both excited with. And then it hit me that I could spend my first month or so hanging out with him in Barcelona pushing that idea forward. And while it is very early stage (we have not even met in person), I got excited by the thought of it.
I’m surrendering to whether it will happen and whether this project will unfold with my presence but within hours I had a first possible destination with a specific reason to be there rather than a random place. It reinforced my belief that surrender is the most elevating way to live because you let life happen for you rather than to you.
You don’t live expecting things to be a certain way and thereby setting yourself up for disappointment if it unfolds differently — and it will many time or even most times — and instead you embrace whatever it brings to you rather than pushing away all the possibilities that are unfolding in front of you that are different than what you had in mind.
I can’t stress that point enough: When you have a plan for yourself not only will you be disappointed when it doesn’t happen, that plan also stands in the way of seeing and allowing the myriad of other possibilities that are presented in front of you because you have a different plan. And the possibilities might be much better for you and, more importantly, they are unfolding in front of you.
So rather than fighting them — because they are different from what you had in mind — you can embrace them and as such life starts flowing with you rather than being a constant struggle swimming against the stream of it. Imagine if you don’t judge things that happen as good or bad but rather embrace them as “what is” and see where they take you. Not only will life become a lot more joyful because you no longer fight reality but it will take you to places and opportunities that you did not even know existed. And who knows what incredible places that could be.
So try to embrace reality in front of you instead of fighting it and let the spontaneity of what’s unfolding as a result flow because life is only in the very moment and if you can’t embrace the moment from moment to moment and instead are always thinking and planing where it takes you you never really live. ✨
PS. That picture was taking in 2016 in front of Mount Batur in Bali during sunrise.
Continue to Day 17: Drop the drama.
