I live close to a large river. In the summertime people love to swim in it, or more accurately, to float in it since it takes you effortlessly downstream. The current is strong making it impossible to swim upstream. The same happens when we try to fight life. If life wants us to take a certain path, in time it will direct us there no matter what we want.
I have long learned to give up the fight and go along with life. I succeed at staying happy even in troubled times, by changing my perspective. Life, it would seem, wants me to take a path in a direction other than the one I have chosen. At first, it might look contrary to where I want to go. However, if I surrender and start walking this new road, even when it appears scary and unfamiliar, all of a sudden it starts to make sense. It is then that I see the path life forced me to take was to my benefit.
At present, it seems that life has directed the entire world’s population to stop. It looks as if we all might have to change and open to a new path, both individually and collectively.
I can only do my part. So I ask myself, “How does this new situation affect me?”
This leads me to look for the good in all. Instead of complaining about what I don’t have any more or what I can’t do in this lockdown-situation, I soon see what I can do and have instead.
I have an empty agenda—no appointments, no checking my watch to see how much time is left before I have to leave. What a relief to slow down and have time to just sit and be. I take books off the shelf I never before found time to read. I bring my worktable up from the basement and lay out all my paintbrushes and canvases to start to draw and paint again. I go through my CD rack and start to listen to the beautiful music I had been storing in my closet. I take out my trampoline and jump to uplifting music each day. In our “Home-Ikebana-Course” each week all of us put an arrangement together, take a picture of it and send it to the teacher who then emails our work to all participants. This way we inspire each other and share our passion for the Japanese art of flower arranging. I could go on and on. And that’s only the physical part of life I engage in to keep myself happy.
Mental activity is as important to me. I choose to practice psycho-hygiene.
I don’t listen to the radio and get infected with all the bad news they constantly repeat. I choose not to watch TV except for a good movie once in a while. This doesn’t mean I deny the tragedy or sadness so many people have to endure. It means that I choose and believe that focusing on the good, focusing on the positive, enjoying my personal happy life, and staying grateful is more beneficial for the world than if I join in the somber choir of the mainstream press. I choose not to have my light get dimmed by all the horror pictures that are televised around the world. I choose to stand firm in my opinion that life wants to teach us something and that we all might have to start changing our perspective and look into another direction.
If this corona-break has taught us nothing but to broaden our view so we realize how far we have gone off track, then it might have been a hard but necessary lesson. Hopefully, this will help each of us see the good in all.