Enjoy the ride

Watch out! You are in the water.

Everything is moving in it. It's moving way too fast for you to grasp its patterns, predict what's going to happen and put it under your [imaginary] control.

Best of all, you are moving with it.

Now you have 3 options: 1. First you can ignore the fact that everything is moving too fast and make-believe that you have something under your control. This works unless [or until] something else in the currents hits you. 2. Second, you can accept the fact that everything is moving, but ignore the fact that you are moving with it. This leaves you desperately searching for and clinging on to other things "that seem not to be moving". Whether what you are clinging on to is a thing, a person or even your very own self, you are [eventually] up for a lot of pain: you will be terribly disappointed when the gap between your mental image of your anchor and its actual fluid nature becomes too wide for you to ignore. 3. Finally, you can accept [and appreciate] both the currents of life and the fact that you are moving in them and with them. Then you can choose to get on with it and enjoy the ride.

Don't fool yourself. You are in the water and the only thing that is under your control - is how you float. So float with your eyes wide open and enjoy the ride.

Read More:

• Shunryu Suzuki

• Alan Watts