Week Thirty-One: No Struggle Revisited — When Plans Change

As I sit in Central Park on a Wednesday afternoon in December – an amazingly warm, Spring-like, un-December day – I find my mind drifting to more thoughts about living with “no-struggle”. We’ve explored the theme of no-struggle before, and life presents endless opportunities to practice it all the time.

I used to be one of those people who got uptight if plans fell through or unfolded in unanticipated ways. Through any number of learning experiences over the past decade, I’ve had repeated chances to adapt, as my best-laid, carefully-strategized, or seemingly-essential plans fell through. My favorite was the rainy day I was set to meet some friends at a movie and, right before leaving, water began to pour through the place where my living room windows met the wall. Quickly, I realized that there wouldn’t be any movie until I had stemmed the flood, which originated from a downpour that didn’t have anywhere to go but into my apartment. Rather than taking time to struggle with the fact that there was a flood in progress, which would have been my old response, I quickly got to work putting buckets, bowls and every other kind of container under the windows. I even found myself laughing at the absurdity of it all, and – by the time I got to the movie – the rain had stopped and the flood was over. Within a day, the cause of the flood – a clogged rainspout on the roof of the building – was taken care of and all was well. As I reflected on the event later that week, I realized how much energy I would have wasted in the past, struggling with the fact that the flood was happening in the first place.

For this week’s experiment, I invite you to explore your relationship with, and responses to, changing plans, unexpected disruptions, unanticipated developments and inconveniences – to anything that unfolds differently from how you expected. Do you tend to struggle with change and the unexpected, or do you note it and then change your plans as the situation requires or allows? There is, of course, no right answer to this question. There is just the continuing opportunity to practice living with no struggle and then noticing how that is for you. It’s also helpful to pay attention to those times when it’s appropriate to give something one more try to see if it will work as you’d hoped - when your efforts create the outcome you intended. Also bring into your experiment a willingness to notice that, whatever happens, you can play with moving through it with a greater flow, a sense of humor, and a curiosity about how releasing struggle can make the journey easier for you. Especially, notice what it’s like to let go of what you thought was going to happen and discover what the moment actually has in store for you.

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