On embracing the fluidity of life…

On embracing the fluidity of life…

If I were to take a survey of different people from all walks of life asking what they believed the purpose of life was, I believe I would get a multitude of thoughts on the subject.  I know even my own thoughts on the subject have changed dramatically in the past two years.  Yet, I think it would be difficult for anyone to argue on this one observation about it…life is an experience.

We are all having our own unique experiences in this life and what makes it particularly interesting, in my opinion, is that we all have free will.  We have the ability to do what we want, say what we want, and think what we want.  We are not free however, from whatever consequences come from those choices.

We have some ability to predict the likely outcome of certain choices or situations we find ourselves in.  We know that if we do something illegal and get caught we will probably have whatever the law dictates as a consequence.  We know that if we irritate a hot head, we are likely to cause a bigger rage.  We know that if we hurt someone, we have a good chance of hurting or even destroying a relationship.  I could go on and on.  If we jump off a huge cliff, we will likely die.  If we drink and drive we might kill someone else.  If we eat well, we have more chance of being healthy than if we eat poorly.  All these are very probable outcomes but what makes life exciting is that they are not or will not ALWAYS be the outcome.

There are people who eat healthy who struggle their whole lives with bad health.  There are people who break the law over and over again and never get caught.  There are people who forgive and those who do not.  Life is a series of surprises.

With all the different possibilities, life cannot be completely predictable.  It WILL at times CHANGE.  Sometimes we have lots of changes and sometimes we have less.  Some people go through more changes than others.  Some changes are inflicted upon us by the environment or other people making choices that affect our lives.  Some changes are self-inflicted.

Change can be uncomfortable, stressful, difficult, and scary or it can be exciting, joyous, and fulfilling.  A beautiful, new relationship is much more wonderful a change than an ugly divorce.  Moving to a beautiful new home is much nicer than losing the home you’ve loved and raised your family in for many, many years.  Gaining anything, except maybe weight, is generally much more pleasant than losing anything.

In my life and my experience, I have found that the more that I can embrace the fluidity of life, the better my journey becomes.  It feels better to expect change and anticipate it and when it comes to ride it like surfing the waves, rather than standing there letting them crash upon my head, working hard not to drown.

The more I allow experiences to happen and stop fighting it, the more peace I find.  People change, relationships change, we learn and grow and go in different directions.

I am not very familiar with video games but I have played or at least watched others play a few.  My experience has been that in games we move from level to level.  Each level has challenges and difficulties to defeat, even bad guys to avoid and often there are keys or prizes or tokens that can be gathered along the way to reward us or to help us with the next level.  

What if this life experience was like a game?  What if we moved from level to level defeating challenges, learning new things, gaining rewards or keys along the way?  What if when we got to a level, or a room or whatever it was, we just stayed there?  What if we enjoyed our little reward so much we didn’t want to move on, we just kept hoping to feel that feeling again?  What if we were stuck in the same place, battling the same bad guys, over and over and over again?

I can imagine that would be terribly frustrating.  I think it would be like a game being “stuck”, unable to proceed to the next level, unable to find the next task.

My goal is to embrace the fluidity of life – to see how gracefully and beautifully I can move through each level, each challenge, learning, growing, experiencing, figuring out who I am and fully enjoying each unique experience that comes before me but also letting go, moving on, embracing change, and loving myself through the whole thing, knowing that this is an experience and I’m doing the best I can and that’s all I can ever ask for.

This is not something I’ve mastered by any means, but it is what I work to achieve.  I believe that this will bring me much more peace in this life and that is worth any price to me.