Recently I have been practicing letting go of needing to control things. Somehow, I’ve come to terms with the surprising (haha) fact that I cannot control much in life, at least in terms of what happens outside of myself. Again and again, life has a way of working out in strange or unexpected ways. More and more, these days I’m able to detach and “let it be,” to quote Sir Paul.
For instance, just this morning, my phone mysteriously shut off. I have owned a cell phone for many years now, and, as I recall, this has never happened. I have tried repeatedly to turn it back on, even plugging it back in in case it lost its power. So far, nothing has worked. Dead phone.
As a modern cell phone user, this is kind of like all the electricity in the house going out: no social media, no phone calls… no cell phone video game baseball (for shame!). The old me would have gotten very screwed up over this. “This is not supposed to happen! How am I going to take pictures for my blog?” 🙂 Yet the new me, after failed attempts to turn the phone on, said to myself, “Hmm… this is interesting. I wonder what this means? I guess I will have to take it to the phone store and have them look at it.”
After making up my mind to let it be, I just decided to do other things. Like complete my morning reading, and then get on the computer to write this post. Because life does go on… even with interruptions. It seems there will often be some little blip or problem as we go about our day. I like to think I am learning not to let this bother me quite so much. I pretty much always have the option to breathe, let it be in, and do something else, while awaiting the solution to the problem.
It reminds me of Wayne Dyer talking about being like water in his PBS series on the Tao. He pointed out how water can get through anything. It never worries about taking the front door, or the back door. It will get in through any crevice, over any object or well, it is shapeless and therefore completely flexible. It will find a way with whatever situation it is given. I like that idea.
Now, it doesn’t mean I’m happy with things like my cell phone mysteriously shutting off. Yet, last time I checked, these interruptions are just a part of life. To me it makes more sense to adopt an attitude that is harmonious with how life actually is. And life throws you little curve balls sometimes. Once you get all twenty eight of your ducks in a row, a rooster comes along, crowing loudly, and sends all the poor birds running!
I have many times heard that in life, we cannot control others, and we cannot control the outside environment. However, we can control our own thoughts, moods, and actions. That means, we can control our reactions to things that occur. And it starts with our focus. When a problem arises, we can focus completely on it, and thereby give it all our power, imagining that as long as this horrible problem exists everything else stops, because this problem is just so horrible. We all know how where that leads. Or, we can focus on something else in front of else, something else that is going just fine. We can make the best of the situation. Like magic, suddenly we become like water, infinitely adaptable and able to find a way through anything.
So in a little while, in the manner of a perfect student of H2O, I’m going to float my way over to the phone store and see if they can get this sucker fixed.