Create the conditions necessary for change
I’m toying with the idea of how you nurture the conditions for change, not forcing change itself. (Or insert the desired x here: peace, health, happiness, a better world, etc.)
You don’t stick a seed in hard-packed ground full of thistles and rocks, not provide water or light, and just sit there poking and urging it to grow.
No, you prepare the soil. Clear it, till it, cultivate it. Work with the seasons, not against them. Apply the right amount of light and water. Soft, loamy compost vs. hard-packed clay makes all the difference in the world. Flourishing can’t happen without it.
It’s like the concept of samadhi in the Buddhist tradition. You don’t force insight, you cultivate the conditions within yourself for it to appear. And then it’s a gift that you receive. It happens when it’s time.
This is very different than just sitting down and being determined — “I’m going to get concentrated.” There is a kind of humbleness or humility where we’re preparing ourselves almost like to receive a gift. We’re preparing ourselves; you know, it’s almost like if samadhi is willing to come. We’re kind of shifting something, becoming a vessel in which to receive something that bubbles up from deep inside. —Gil Fronsdal, Guided Meditation: Entering Samadhi
That doesn’t appeal to the ego, though. We want to be in control, to be the hero, to fix the problem. And that’s what’s gotten us into the fix we’re in.
- previously: flow, don’t force
- related: think in ecosystems, not systems
- see also: choosing the familiar doesn’t take you somewhere new