Life happens. I happen. Life happens.
Learning a new relationship to life has helped me stress less.
As a founder, freelancer and academic I believed that I was in control of my own destiny.
I learned this from my father.
He was a solopreneur who read all the books to help him become better.
He believed that life didn’t owe him anything and that it was up to him to get what he wanted.
He left school at 12 to help his father on the farm.
And at 18 he left Sardinia to serve as a waiter in Switzerland, German and finally the UK.
Once he got to London he knew that he wanted more than waitering and so he used his language skills to do something completely new.
And maybe not so new.
He went from being a shepherd of sheep to a shepherd of people, taking groups of tourists across Europe and teaching them about the wonders and history of its most beautiful cities.
Hi did that for over 40 years.
He’s the perfect definition of a self-made man.
He was the master of his own destiny.
Or was he.
Learning more about his life and also having experienced 50 years on this planet I’ve learned that we’re not always in full control.
Arguably we’re never in control.
And it’s that shift in mindset that can make life more joyful and the difficulties more bearable.
When we’re young life happens to us.
We feel a victim to the whims of the world, whether that’s our parents’ moods or the bullies at school (work).
Then we’re taught that we can be who we want to be.
And we try to make things happen.
Some of us do. We get rewarded for our efforts and believe that we’re actually in control.
And then shit happens.
And we try to make that shit go away.
And it doesn’t.
That’s when it gets hard. We’re trying to happen to life. But life is just happening. And we have no control.
I’ve come to believe that’s when I need to relax and accept.
To let life happen.
But not in the way i did in the past where I resisted or blamed life.
But like a surfer trying to catch the wave.
I try to go with the flow.
Sometimes I get sucked under and have to fight my way to the surface again.
Sometimes I catch it perfectly and life feels effortless.
But I’m learning to give up fighting against the waves.
Or against myself.
As there’s not only waves outside of us to ride.
But also internal waves.
Which just happen.
So, in my middlescent years I’ve learned this…
Life can happen to us.
Or we can happen to life.
Or we can just let life happen.
And we just flow with it the best we can.
Ironically I write this on the way to the The DO Lectures Microblogging course led by David Hieatt but having got on the wrong train going in the opposite direction.
Just breathe...