Surfing Through Life

Category: Personal Development for Adults

Why do we call something "good" or "bad"? What truly counts as good or bad is difficult to define, since it depends on timing and on the one who observes.

At every moment we surf the waves of life. We meet waves of contentment, sorrow, happiness, joy, anger, calm, fulfillment, emptiness, and confusion. If we look at our own voyage, we see there were both good and challenging swells, yet we still managed to ride them.

Each of us has, at one time or another, navigated rough seas. Most of us label those passages as bad moments, because we did not wish to feel sadness, anger, despair, and the wide range of other emotions that came with them. We wanted to escape those feelings as quickly as possible.

Yet as we keep sailing through life, the wave that was dropping eventually rises. When we arrive in fair weather, we realize that the painful, difficult experience brought us something new. It brought change. Very often we even feel grateful for the hard moments and understand that they were exactly what we needed to learn and to move forward. They helped us grow and evolve, and to view life in a new way, a broader and more inclusive way. We became richer for those experiences. Our awareness expanded.

Then we reach a good stretch and wish to keep it forever, yet that is not possible. Just when you think you have everything shipshape, the next wave rolls in. You realize there is no standstill. If we stop, we halt life, and life cannot be halted. If we try to hold on to any state, something will arrive that pushes us out of apparent stillness. That does not mean we must lose our inner calm. That choice is ours. When we are well anchored within and become the observer of those waves, we remain at peace regardless of the squall we find ourselves in. The more time we spend in our own depths, the firmer the anchor becomes. With a quiet smile we watch the waves and begin to participate in life in a completely new way.

We are no longer tied to good or bad moments, because we know they are waves and that is what life is. We do not flee the waves. We move with the current and allow ourselves to live each moment fully. This calls for complete presence. The presence of our whole being, not escape.

Suddenly we begin to enjoy the waves and observe change with a smile. Every change is the passing of an old form and the birth of a new one. If we understand this and, without fear, remain fully present in each moment, our life transforms. Gradually we gain inner strength. External events no longer throw us off course, because we experience them differently. People and situations that once sent our blood pressure soaring no longer feel like sources of stress. We observe what we are meant to learn from those situations and events. We do not run from unpleasant feelings and we do not try to hold on to pleasant ones, because we know they are only temporary. This is how we stay in dialogue with life. Life and us in conversation.

The only way to change the world is to change ourselves. All power lies within. There are no real and unreal situations, only what is real or unreal to us. When we try to change others and everything around us, we waste our own energy, instead of tending to our inner world and starting the change from there. Everything is in the eye of the beholder. When we change the observer, ourselves, we change what we see. We change our very experience of life.

As long as we blame something or someone else for our own state, we go nowhere, because we have not assumed responsibility and the power to change, to shape, and to create the life we desire.

There is nothing we must do. There is only the idea that something must be done. As long as we cling to that idea, we limit ourselves as beings of vast potential. We hold back from becoming something higher, more beautiful, better, and more harmonious, and from creating a life that is more beautiful, better, and more harmonious.

We have the power of choice.