One of my favourite Law of Attraction books is Ask and it is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks. In it they talk about the flow of life and equate it to a river. What most of us do is put our boat into the river, face upstream and paddle very hard. They suggest letting go of the oars and “going with the flow”. I did that yesterday.
I had an appointment downtown Toronto at 7:30am. Since it take just over an hour without a lot of traffic to get downtown from my house I left at 6:15am. I turned on the radio. The music station I was listening to did not air the news before I got on the highway. I got to the edge of the next town and came to a grinding halt. I thought, “Oh no.” I switched to the all news radio station. There had been an truck roll-over. The road was down to one lane. I slowly made my way to the next exit. I called ahead and let them know I was going to be late.
I had now been on the road an hour. I made my way slowly through town. Seems everyone else had the same idea. I felt like turning back but ignored the thought. I forged ahead. I kept trying to find a better route, to no avail. At one point I even had the thought, “Every decision I am making this morning is a bad one.” I felt as if I was paddling upstream. Pushing against the world and it was pushing back, hard.
I finally made it past the accident scene, got gas and a cup of tea. I felt better and got back on the highway. I was now three towns from my home and almost to the Toronto border. The traffic came to another grinding halt. It was now 8:15am. “That’s it!” I got off at the next exit, cancelled my appointment, and got back on the highway going the other way. I was going home. I had had enough.
Immediately I began to feel better. I had literally turned around, going with the flow (of traffic), instead of fighting against it.
I believe in the past my day would have just gotten worse, but because I turned around, my day got better.
Have you ever felt as if the world is against you? Have you ever felt as if you have to push hard against the world to get where you want to go? Next time stop, think about what you are doing, let go of the oars and go with the flow.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:37 am
I know it must have been a very stressful situation, but it seems slightly irresponsible to cancel on an appointment if I was already 45 minutes late. However, I completely understand that it was not your fault, and that you tried your best. I agree that people should just follow the flow more often, but I believe there are also times in life where we just have to push ahead despite the obstacles and how hard it may be.
May 27th, 2008 at 7:56 am
The appointment was personal, not business, so after sitting in my car for two hours and burning gas at $1.25 per litre ($5 per gallon) seemingly going nowhere, I cancelled.
Yes, I do agree, there are times you do need to push ahead, just as fire makes steel stronger. Sometimes you just need to drop the oars.