It's that time again, that time when a lot of us embark on various "self-improvement projects" for the coming year. There is a lot in our culture that pushes us in the direction of abrupt, radical change, of taking an all-or-nothing approach to remodeling our lives, of continually trying to "fix" ourselves. And I'm as prone to that as the next person. As a culture, we're heavily into working on ourselves. We tend to think that we'd be happier, better looking, financially better off, more popular, if only ... If only we would "get it in gear" and make some dramatic change in ourselves ... However, it also seems that time and time again, we discover that this approach doesn't work. For most people, most of the time, it's a set-up for burnout and failure.
When we look at it this way, we experience our lives as lurching jaggedly from one fixed state to another: couch potato to ardent physical fitness buff, disorganized lazybones to a meticulous neatnik. And we believe we must make it all happen by exerting our willpower to fix what's wrong.
What if we viewed our lives differently? How might things change if we chose to understand our lives as a road, a continuous, unbroken path, a flowing river? As a journey we more cooperate with than direct and manage? As a work in progress rather than a matter of fixing what's wrong with us?
Some reading and reflecting I've been doing lately point us in the direction of a kinder, more expansive, more loving and less critical way to experience ourselves and approach personal growth and change.
In the midst of striving and struggling to change, we can pause and loosen our grip on our lives. As the author Richard Gilbert reminds us, life is always "unfinished business," and we're always "works in progress." We don't have to struggle to wrestle ourselves and our lives into shape. Incompleteness and imperfection are not necessary evils of the human condition or the result of some metaphysical "fall" of humankind. They are necessary corollaries of our always living in possibility. That there is always more to be done is OK. We can give thanks and celebrate the power of the incomplete because it is room for growth. We can afford to be patient and wait as our lives unfold according to their own internal plan. We're not good at waiting, but doing so encourages change we can live with because it develops from the totality of who we are.
This allows for progress rather than calling for all-or-nothing change. When we let go of need for perfection, we realize that we change and develop gradually as new habits form. As we let go of blaming ourselves for what's past, we free up energy for the future that we want to bring into being. When we take this approach, too, it allows our lives to unfold according to their own internal plan. This way leads to consistency, dependability, and congruence, because who we are becoming arises from who we are in each moment.
Everything that is has come about by evolving out of what came before it. We do not have leave anything completely behind; indeed, we cannot. Who we are in this moment is shaped by who we have been, and who we will be is shaped and formed by who we now are. Nor need we despise or denigrate who we were in the past, because we would not be who we are without that past. At the same time, when the truly new does arise within us, providing a way where we did not see a way before, it comes as a surprise. When we try to produce it by the force of our will, we simply replicate the old. It appears when we give up on it and thus release our grip on the struggle to achieve it.
Experiencing our lives as flow means it's something we can go with, be held by or within, rather than something we have to fight to make happen. It's an invitation to relax and rest in something greater than ourselves. It allows and encourages us, to relax into the present moment, without feeling that we need to "get on with it," to get on with accomplishing, with bettering ourselves, with bettering the lives of others. Ironically, I find that I do better and get more accomplished if I allow myself to relax and let things develop and grow at their own pace, in their own way. You might, as well.
This column originally appeared in the January 26th edition of the Yorktown Press and is reprinted with their permission.
