WHAT IF I TOLD YOU…

Quite the contrary…

It has been important to remind myself that in surrender I am not giving up who I essentially am. I am not giving up on choices or choosing direction. I am not becoming a doormat or a puppet by letting the world or those around me dictate what I do. I am, instead, becoming stronger, gaining choice and insight and seeing my life with an improved view that is becoming more and more clear by the day. The clutter of self-will can be debilitating. With clarity comes option, with option comes opportunity, with opportunity comes growth, with growth there is learning and with all there is happiness and peace.

That is the goal.

I know in the past I have considered the concepts of acceptance and surrender as “giving up.” The word surrender potentially describes a loss where there must undoubtedly be a winner somewhere else. Surrender is not about winning or losing as much as it is about knowing what is best for success and happiness. It is not about letting go of control as much as it could be about gaining options for future choice. In surrender I am not powerless, as odd as it sounds the act of surrender is actually giving you a better definition of power back… power with a different focus and an enlightened motivation.

In surrender I have always found myself “lighter.” In self-will there is a general heaviness of thought and emotion. I am trudging endlessly towards what I believe I need in self-will. I convince myself that there are certain things, people, places, and choices that are what I am supposed to be or have. In focusing so heavily on these things I lose sight on most of the world around me. I begin to focus on the negatives that will mount as a result of the inevitability that my will isn’t always what the world is going to provide. When a soul in self-will is not seeing what it wants to see it becomes a person persecuted. In persecution (at any level) there is no happiness. It becomes a question that some may need to ponder… but in the end really doesn’t merit comparison:

Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

To make matters a bit more confusing I should preface that I am not saying that being “wrong” is the answer to happiness. We must make correct decisions and choices for our lives every waking day. I don’t want to be wrong about the things that are going to make the differences in my world. I make decisions every day fully knowing that I would prefer to be right within them. There are two ways to look at this sort of conundrum. One is to remember that there is really no “right” or “wrong,” there are only the decisions we make with the consequences or results to follow. If they are “right” all is well with the world. If they are “wrong” one could say there is a lesson to be learned. Another way to look at this is to remember that being “right” at all costs is about the ego. Perhaps being wrong teaches us humility. If I insist to myself that I must be something or people “owe” me this or that… I am in a major period of self-will. Nothing is that absolute as much as I might try to convince myself otherwise. If I deserve something it will happen. If it hasn’t happened it may not be in the plan and thus, I may not deserve it the way I thought. If, perhaps, I did deserve it and it does not appear there must be something else out there on the path. My demand that I still deserve what has not appeared is not going to do anything outside of making ME (and perhaps those around me) miserable. Is that worth it?

All humans deserve happiness. That doesn’t mean we are always going to be happy, that simply is not going to be possible. If I didn’t know the emotions outside of happiness I would have nothing to gauge that against. If I was happy all the time I would probably not learn very much about the value of life or others within it. It is perfectly natural for me to continue feeling that I deserve happiness. We all do. To expect it, however, is the downfall… expectations can be brutal. To strive for it through methods such as surrender is admirable and smart. If I were to do a scientific study of the how I have felt during different phases of my life I can guarantee that I have been happiest during periods of surrender and peace, and unhappiest during periods that I have tried to control all the results. I would venture to guess that in self-will I wouldn’t recognize a lot of the happiness available to me. That is one of the greatest losses of being too focused on the self only.

The bottom line is that I am feeling more powerful in surrender than I have in self will. I have to admit that when I am trying to run the show I lose the perspective that is required to honestly be the best I can be. The path is limited and I suffer that consequence. If surrender feels that you will not get what you want… I would suggest another review. It is always good to remember that what we want is different than what we need. What we THINK we want is going to end up cheating you somehow. Let it go.

Be Happy. Be Well. Be.