“You cannot push the river.”
I was reminded of this quote today in a counseling session and it really hit home with me in my recent mode of thinking. If we are at a point in life when we feel like we’re swimming upstream against the current, it’s likely because we’re going against the natural flow of things. It’s much easier to let the flow take us where it may and not be in such resistance to its path.
This is, at least for me, not an easy proposition. Thanks to our egos, we like to think that we know what’s best for ourselves and everyone else. The outside world needs to see, accept, understand, and follow through with our perspective on things. If they choose to do so, then all is well. But if by chance they don’t, which is bound to happen from time to time, we can get all out of sorts.
For today, I have to understand that not everything in the world is going to play out the way I think it should. And while it’s important to share my viewpoints when they’re asked for, I don’t need to think things are necessarily going to go the way I think they should. While some resistance is helpful and perhaps even needed, I must keep in my that too much of that is not helpful or healthy.
And on this day I will remind myself if there’s too much resistance in any of life’s situations, I may need to change with the present currents and go with the flow.
David Lee
David Lee 