time and tide

I was delighted to find one sentence in today's Daily Om that perfectly expressed what I'd been thinking about on my morning walk:  Since we regard success as an inevitable eventuality, we tend to view time as meaningless.

I'd been considering how many friends, clients, and family members I have seen go through very tough times and come out the other side stronger, wiser, and happier than before.  I've seen jobs lost and found, relationships ending and beginning, children arriving and departing, educations commenced and completed.  I've been privileged to witness many dreams come true, many goals achieved, and many fantasies become reality.  These things did not necessarily happen as quickly as people had hoped, but happen they did.

Lately I'm considering the possibility that a large percentage of human suffering stems from impatience.  In my case, I'm estimating about ninety percent!  I think sometimes when things don't happen instantly, or at least within a few days, some of us start to wonder what we are doing wrong.  Are we not energetically aligned with our desires?  Not thinking positively enough?  Not putting out enough effort?  What are we missing? 

I've sustained several injuries in the past few years that have taught me a lot about this process.  No matter what I did or didn't do, healing took its time.  Yes, I could create optimal conditions for healing to take place -- nutrition, rest, exercise, etc -- but I could not force healing to happen. 

At one point I just sort of gave up on it.  I thought back to previous physical issues from my past and realized that I no longer had any of them.  They just eventually went away.  Then I thought of the Taoist expression that no storm lasts forever.  And I decided to stop trying to heal; to just get on with my life and let it go, even if it meant the problem might be with me forever.  I figured I'd either adapt to having it and forget what it had been like not to have it, or it would go away on its own. 

Most recently, I did this with an arm injury.  I was pretty ticked off about the range of motion restriction I was experiencing.  I finally became aware that I was giving it way too much of my attention, so I decided to accept it 'as is' and let it be.  The other day I happened to notice that it had healed and I have full use of my arm again.  I have no idea when that occurred.

So I wonder how it would be to do that with everything --  to place my order, like when I call for a pizza to be delivered, and then get busy with other things while the Universe whips it up for me.  I've thought about this, and probably written about this, before. But now, just in the past few months, I think I've finally hit the tipping point -- seen it happen often enough to believe and trust that life really can work this way.

If I felt certain that things would work themselves out eventually, I'd be much less uptight about when, where, and how.  Time really could become meaningless.

and of course a song popped right into my mind to go along with the title of this post, right?  Time and Tide by Basia.  How great is that?