Recently, I went for a hike in the Chugach Range just outside of Anchorage, Alaska. As I was heading up the hill, it started to rain.
I was very aware of a shift in my attitude from the past, as I stood there and enjoyed the rain on my body rather than ducking for shelter or trying to re-arrange my clothing to keep the water off. My clothes got wet, my skin got cold, and I loved the sensation as the weather gyrated through a myriad of conditions before settling again on overcast.
Martial artists teach a concept referred to as ‘mind like water’. When you throw a stone into a pond, how does the pond respond? Totally appropriately to the stone: it reshapes and adapts in the moment, it dissipates the force, then it quickly returns to calm. The pond is not anticipating the stone, nor does it ignore it; instead, it responds to the stone exactly when needed and only as much as is necessary.
Like the pond, I chose to respond only as much as was necessary. I knew the rain would not hurt me and that keeping dry was not necessary to my survival. I had long ago decided that being dry was not the key to happiness, that getting wet was a good thing. I could have run for the nearest bushes, but why bother? The rain was enjoyable. Instead of reacting to my environment, I responded to it. My response was to enjoy the change, to allow the new sensations and experience them and relish in them. Instead of worrying about what wasn’t ‘right’ in the moment, I defined ‘right’ to be the moment in whatever form it took.
In what ways is your mind not ‘like water’? What stresses you? Where do you overreact to the changes going on around you? When do you miss an opportunity to be present in the moment because you have a different expectation about how the moment should be?
The value of expectation is that you apply yourself towards creating an experience that is important based on your goals. This is one of many pieces that allow you to accomplish and produce in life. This is a good thing. Sometimes.
Most of the time it is better to let go of expectation and just be.
When I was a child, my grandmother had a plaque on the wall that said “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” This quote from Reinhold Niebuhr is just another way of reminding us to be present to the world and to life, to not worry so much about the little things, to enjoy the moment as it presents itself.
Stop anticipating. Let go of your anxiety when things aren’t the way you want them to be. Be the pond, live with a mind like water.
Other news
- Have your cake and eat it too? FTC: ‘Natural Cures’ Author in Contempt [redtape.msnbc.com]
- Another ‘blame biology’ article: Pulling back the curtain on stage fright [www.msnbc.msn.com]
- Next thing you know, pets will start planning early demises for their owners: Wealthy folks are turning pets into hairy heirs [www.msnbc.msn.com]
From the editor
I missed another summer in Seattle this year. The weather was warm the day I arrived, but it’s been cold, grey, and overcast most of the time since that day. Today it is raining, with the sharpness to the air that usually means wind and heavy rains are just a few weeks away.
We had a joke in Anchorage when I was growing up, “Summer was great this year: it happened on a weekend!” Well, with all my traveling, I haven’t seen a Pacific Northwest summer in 3 years now. Even though they are longer than a few days, I’ve just been gone too much to experience the best part of the year.
I’ll miss this place. I’ll make a point of visiting when the weather is good next time.
Healthy thoughts,
Jeff
