We’re encouraged from an early age to think of happiness and success as things to be achieved rather than accepted.
But future fulfillment does not exist.
Research shows that people have a baseline for happiness. Even if someone wins the lottery, gains fame, or finds the perfect relationship or job, their happiness will eventually return to its baseline after a certain amount of time.
However, there is something that can raise your baseline, and that is to start moving like one who has already arrived.
Trying to grasp the future only creates fear and makes us prisoners of our desires. Life is always shifting and transforming, and it is resistance to this reality that causes suffering.
The future does not exist, and the past is just a memory. Only now is real. Life is unpredictable, and no amount of planning can prepare us for what may or may not occur.
Sometimes it feels as if we don’t try to take charge, everything will fall apart. But the truth is that the tighter we try to hold onto a person or a situation, the more resistance we create.
This doesn’t mean that we should stop striving to make positive changes in our lives and the world around us. We still need to make decisions and choices and set worthy goals.
It only means that we must act without attachment to outcomes. We need to recognize when to act and when to trust to move with the changing nature of life.
By staying mindful and cultivating presence, we can learn to be like the river that simply flows without concern for the rocks but moves around them and reaches its destination.
When we realize that we are part of something greater than our plans and expectations, we take the necessary steps but with a sense of trust rather than fear.
True power doesn’t come from controlling life but from moving with it.
“Embrace uncertainty. Embrace that what is meant for you will find its way.” –Alan Watts
