By Deborah Blackwell

For some, life comes easily and naturally. For others, life comes hard, and keeps coming…over and over…for what? To teach, to show, to help us grow?

It’s easy to find ourselves on a bumpy path, especially with all the world is facing—the global pandemic, ongoing racism, sexism, a horrific divisiveness that we thought disappeared after the Civil War. Yikes. It’s all still here.

We each look at life from our own vantage point, our own frame of reference, from our own heart and mind. It’s a personal journey. Our perspective comes from an inner place, guided by a force or source inside us, but it’s also shaped by the world around us.

We never know how each day will present itself. What we want to do is not compatible with what we can do.

Even though we know we’re not alone in this time of chaos and confusion, it’s hard. We’re overwhelmed, exhausted, and worried. Our glasses are fogged by a mask, our minds are fogged by a lack of freedom and safety and normal routine.

Most of us wake up hoping the day will bring something different—news of hope, a miracle even, that things on the planet have changed. Can we put our feet on the floor, or open our front door and feel good? Or, will it be another day of isolation that just drags into the next?

Life is bringing lessons at a swift, sometimes debilitating pace: slow down, pay attention, take care of yourself, shift, change, grow.

There’s discomfort in growth, and we’ve been trained through the years by our circumstances, whatever they may be. It takes practice to not be afraid of just allowing life to unfold.

I recently heard from a childhood friend, who, in spite of the state of the world, trucks through life with a sense of ease.

As we talked, I was happy for her, but wondered, where am I going wrong? How does she balance the intense struggles around her with a feeling of inner peace? 

It’s about our choice in the moment, she said, to find something, anything, to feel happy about. That’s really all we can control. We know what feels good, even when reality around us doesn’t mesh. And the more we do it, the more we find to feel good about.

There’s no going wrong, there’s just going forward.

It reminded of me something pretty profound I heard author and meditation guy Jeff Warren say.

“Each moment is this unique collage of elements that doesn’t repeat itself.”

Think about that for a minute. Every single moment is new, and fresh. And while we can’t be certain about what is next, we can stop trying so hard to find relief, and instead try harder to find joy. Because that’s really all we want.

We want to enjoy life every day day, and we don’t want to have to work too hard at it. But we don’t have to. We can just choose, and keep growing.