Befriending Life is Less a Matter-Daily Meditation 4.5.23

Today’s quotation:

Befriending life is less a matter of knowledge than a question of wisdom.  It is not about mastering life, controlling it, or exerting our will over it, no matter how well-intentioned our will may be.  Befriending life is more about harmlessness than it is about control.-Rachel Naomi Remen

Daily Meditation:

We like to try to control situations and people because it makes us feel safe.  It doesn’t make us safe–it just makes us feel safe.  If we can control life, nothing out of the ordinary can happen, and nothing can hurt us.  If we control other people, we can maintain the status quo and not face changes that may be difficult for us to handle.  The desire for control seems inherent in many of us, but even if it’s not inborn, most of us learn it as a strategy for getting by.

But life is at its most dynamic when we don’t try to control it and when we accept it as it is and roll with it.  We can befriend life just as it is and still live enjoyable, rich, and complete lives without trying to make things turn out how we think they should.  I’ve realized over the years that life is much wiser than I am and that life will take its course no matter how hard I try to control it.  My efforts at control cause me only frustration and tension, but when I accept what life brings, I find that I can deal with it well, and I don’t have to live with the tension that my attempts at control used to bring me.

I like the idea of befriending life.  I like the idea of letting life be what it is and dealing with it on its terms rather than trying to dictate the terms of my relationship with life.  Of course, many things should be controlled–no one wants someone driving down a residential street at 80 miles an hour or driving drunk–but those things are pretty self-evident.  While I sometimes give advice, for example, I’ve given up doing so mostly because I’ve realized that my advice was often an attempt to get someone to do something the way I thought they should rather than finding their own ways of it dealing with situations.  That’s a level of control that’s not at all healthy.

I’m not the manager of the world, and it does me a world of promising not to try to manage the world but to meet it on its terms and learn what it has to offer.  After all, it doesn’t feel good to bang our heads against walls.

Questions to consider:

Why do most people try to control so many situations and actions?

Why are so many of us so wary of allowing life to take its course?

How many situations have you tried to control today?  This week?  Why?

For further thought:

Knowing the difference between what we can control and can’t is critical for day-to-day happiness.  There is no point in banging our heads against a wall.  Once we understand what we can’t do, we can make the most critical decisions about what we will do. Richard Carlson.

If you missed yesterday’s Daily Meditation, it is right here.