Our instinct is to act first. As long as we take action, we move forward. Doing is being. A good offense is a good defense. Idle hands are the devil’s tools. These are all things we hear over and over. But experience shows us that sometimes the best action is actually no action. Our efforts are too often merely attempts to manipulate outcomes in response to our own insecurities and fear of uncertainty anyway. By doing nothing we trust that causes and effects will arise in the natural flow of life. We don’t have to crawl out of holes if we never dig them.
Lamenting past decisions and focusing on current misfortune are ways we fill our time when suffering. It distracts us from how little control we have and our fear and uncertainty about the future. But it also prevents us from moving forward and experiencing the beauty around us. Our natural reaction when we feel vulnerability or pain is to shut down and protect ourselves. It’s during these times that we must resist that tendency and open up more. By doing so we learn negative feelings are merely waves that wash over and eventually recede creating space for beauty to come in.
It’s easy to forget that the darkest part of any night is still only an instant. Whether positive or negative, every event emerges and expires from moment to moment. We often become attached to the experience and want the good to last forever and think the bad will never go away. But everything is continually changing. Recognizing this and allowing the waves of experience to wash over us without reaction while retaining the courage and wonder to watch what will happen next with an open mind and heart is our challenge and reward. Worry not about the darkness; it never lasts.
We appreciate our alone time and in our current hyper-busy lives, we probably don’t have enough of it. But even when we’re able to slow down and steal a few moments to re-center, we’re never truly alone. Our decisions leave a trail and propel us in new, exciting, and terrifying directions, touching the lives of those we interact with and influencing many more we don’t. It doesn’t matter the shape or direction of our paths. Only that we realize they are constantly unfolding and connected to everyone and everything around us in meaningful ways that will be revealed over time.
We often know immediately when we make mistakes. With more experience we begin noticing the poor choices as they occur. Eventually as we mature, we recognize the bad decisions before they happen. Experiencing this gap between action and reaction allows us to choose a different response and hopefully create a more positive outcome. Unfortunately when we voice our cynical instincts to others, we are often accused of being pessimists. But recognizing negative outcomes before they occur does not make us party poopers or defeatists. It really just shows we are learning and becoming more self-aware.
Our instinct is to act first. As long as we take action, we move forward. Doing is being. A good offense is a good defense. Idle hands are the devil’s tools. These are all things we hear over and over. But experience shows us that sometimes the best action is actually no action. Our efforts are too often merely attempts to manipulate outcomes in response to our own insecurities and fear of uncertainty anyway. By doing nothing we trust that causes and effects will arise in the natural flow of life. We don’t have to crawl out of holes if we never dig them.
