“Sometimes when life is not giving you what you think you want, it is helping you to not settle for less than what you really want.”  – Alan Cohen

I think this is about going with the flow of life.  Accepting what is and allowing the Loving Universe to manifest the best thing.  I don’t usually tell stories about my life, but maybe sometimes it can be helpful to illustrate.

My weekend plans changed at the last minute and with a lunch date with a friend on Sunday, I had a few errands to run on Saturday.  So, I carefully calculated my movements to accomplish these stops in the least amount of time. There were other things I wanted to do with my Saturday. 

Lo and behold, I got out on the highway and boom!  I was in a traffic jam.  My plans were shot.  I often go to the cell phone when stopped in traffic.  It always seems a good time to catch up on calls.  No one was home.  So, there I was forced to resign myself to what was going on. Shuffling a few things in my head, deciding what I could eliminate, depending on what time I got out of this mess, I accepted the situation. With a plan B in hand, I went about singing, looking around me and thinking about the new system I’d developed.  Before I knew it, I was there.  About a half hour behind schedule.  What I had anticipated would take  two hours only took one, and I was able to get done all my other errands while I was waiting . . . I got home earlier than I expected!

There I was, sitting in the car, thinking life wasn’t giving me what I thought I wanted: a quick drive to where I was going.  But my thought that I was better off going with the flow and trusting it’s for the best, helped it to move more smoothly and with far less angst.  Ending up with a shorter and less stressful errand.  What I really wanted, rather than to get down the By-Pass in 17 minutes, was to return home as soon as possible and get to the other things I wanted to do.

Life has a way of doing that.  I’ve been noticing it a lot lately. That going-with-the-flow, accepting-what-is going on, pays off with positive dividends.  I was about to do the books the other day.  I opened up Quicken only to find that the last entry was from 8 months ago!  Now, I have been dutifully updating it every week since then, but all those entries were missing. The idea of going back and trying to recreate it made me weep.  All the time it would take!  Well, I thought, this will give me an opportunity to start fresh, make better, more efficient headings.  I could skip the rest of last year and just update for the first three months of this.  That wouldn’t be so bad . . .   Oh well, I said.  And turned my attention to other things.  Later that day, my amazing husband found the missing entries!  All was well.  I didn’t have to do a thing.  Maybe what was better for me that day was to put energy into other things. 

I’m just not sure what the use is in thinking otherwise.  This way of accepting what is happening and moving on is not the cop out I used to think it was.  It makes sense.  Seeing what is and doing what works seems the only sane way to behave.  I could have continued to stress about the missing file, worry about the extra work needed and curse my fate.  Instead I enjoyed what was in front of me and the problem was resolved!  I am grateful that it was, but I would’ve been fine if it hadn’t.  I found a comfortable place to rest with it.  I lost a little time, but not much energy.  In the process, I got more of what I really wanted: Peace.