Letting Go of Outcomes

We all have to reconcile when things don’t go our way. The current state of political affairs in thie world will ultimately conclude with a large percentage of people being unhappy. Sometimes the act of reconciliation is more important than getting what we originally wanted, however.

Somewhere in our past as children we learned that crying or pouting might get us that treat in the grocery store from Mom. Memory of that behavior is still there, somewhere in the recesses of our minds; the urge to try this strategy as adults may still linger in the background, but it likely would be far less effective, if not embarrassing, since we are now adults.

Does it still seem that more things seem to not go the way we want them to than the other way around? Murphy's Law states that if anything can go wrong, it will. When things go wrong, as they seem to so often do, do you sometimes want to crawl off into a corner or have a temper tantrum?

There is always another alternative way to respond - we can handle misfortune gracefully. Grace isn’t about suppressing heart-ache or failure so much as it is about being present and honest about things while holding our dignity. That’s why we always love stories about the underdog becoming triumphant... and why we empathize when they are not.

About twenty years ago, a dear friend of mine was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Her doctor performed surgery, but the cancer was so extensive she was told she did not have much longer to live. As a new mother with a little girl, it was the most crushing news she and her husband could receive. Since orthodox medicine did not have a solution and sent her home with a terminal prognosis, Shari abandoned their forecast outcome and immediately set about to fully live in the moment – every moment – and dig down into her health imbalance to seek solutions both within and in the world at large.

Living well past her two-month prognosis, Shari lived seventeen years in defiance of all formal medical understanding, bringing three more healthy little girls into the world during that time. Abandoning the bad news, she set about to change everything about her lifestyle and thinking that she believed contributed to her health challenge. Though she ultimately passed, leaving a heartbroken husband and four sweet daughters, her wisdom continues to inspire everyone who knew her, including her doctors. She was such a great example of grace under the worst possible duress – the threat of losing it all.

Most of us have heard, “It is the journey, not the destination” or “It’s not about winning or losing, but about how you play the game”. Such words of wisdom have become so clichéd that we may forget to embody them. Life is full of challenges for each of us. Remember that is why we came here in the first place – to learn lessons from the challenges we agreed to. Throughout our lives we are called to embody the spiritual wisdom that invites us to remain present in the moment, to love fearlessly and cultivate compassion for ourselves and all those around us.

It is possible to be at peace at any time you choose if you pierce through the false reality we have been made to believe, based upon the idea of life and death, to touch the ultimate reality in which the energy we are made of can neither be created nor destroyed. By recognizing the interconnectedness of all existence, we can move beyond the idea that we are separate, and expand our compassion and love in such a way that we take action to better meet our challenges and overcome them as best we can with grace.

A crisis such as we find in the world at this moment may be one of our greatest opportunities to take a look at things that are not working and change our course in history. It is essential for our creativity and health to always choose love instead of fear as a lens through which we see the world – especially now.

Stress is almost always the result of fear, or worrying about outcomes. Peace almost always arises when we can be fully present in the moment. If we make now the destination then we will find that we are already here and outcomes in the future will mean a whole lot less. Right action is its own reward, we don’t need to chase dangling carrots.

We will not have this world as we know it forever, but right now the sun is still rising every morning. We have so much that we overlook as we gaze into the future. The solutions we seek may just present themselves effortlessly if we can become fully present and receptive in the moment. If the world ends tomorrow, what will it matter if we took the time to enjoy it today?