Towards Life . com

It’s astounding how we can complicate something as simple as “life”. It’s the easiest thing to live, mostly because you have to do nothing. Everything gets done for you automatically. There is no need for any effort at all. And yet we seem to be “efforting” so badly that life looks like one big never ending miserable ride.

It’s not about feeling good

This is not a feel good “pep” talk about how to enjoy life. In fact, the whole problem is that you always want to “feel” good. Just imagine what will happen if you stopped wanting to feel “better” all the time. What if you were okay with what life has to offer at any moment? Can you really find a reason to suffer?

You don’t need to be a doctor to know that a human body cannot maintain a “high” all the time. Our bodies run on a “charge”, we even emit electric pulses. There are times when we feel highly charged and then there are times when our bodies are on a low. It’s a cycle. It’s “unnatural” and impossible to retain a high charge all the time. In other words, it’s impossible to feel good all the time.

When things are going good, when you feel really gushy and cool inside, you are not resisting life and so you feel relaxed and at ease. But when you start feeling low, you start resisting the feeling and so you start to struggle. You want to start feeling good again and so you try to “dissociate” with your body. Some people start gorging themselves with food, some hook into unconsciousness through TV, music or games, some take to alcohol, cigarettes and drugs.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to feel good. Our minds are wired to resist anything that feels “negative” because it is perceived as a threat to survival. So it’s completely normal to want to get away from the negative feelings, even at cost of becoming “brain dead” unconscious through drugs and booze. But to “get away” is not a very healthy solution in the long run, because this body is not going to change its ways.

The secret to happiness is a paradox

We are always trying to “do” something to stop feeling low. All our attempts to get away from our “low” feelings only seem to exacerbate things, but we never learn. We end up complaining, praying, hoping, dreaming, working, eating or drinking, to somehow make the bad feelings go away. In other words, we just try to escape the moment by giving our power away to external forces. The more we “try” the most resistance we create and the more we struggle against our negative feelings.

The paradox is that the easiest way to overcome negative feelings is to “not” do anything. That’s the last thing on our minds when faced with a “bad” feeling. We try to solve it, instead of just letting it be. But this is why most people keep struggling all their lives. They forget to notice the obvious. The more effort you put in to escape a negative feeling, the more it will perpetuate. If you don’t do anything, the feeling will just come and go without lingering around. The more you “want” to feel good, the more you will struggle.

It’s not easy to stay effortless because we are conditioned to go to our minds for solving everything. The mind unfortunately is quite hopeless at solving life, it’s not meant to do this job at all. The mind is here to do mathematics, work with computers, invent gadgets, and do mechanical stuff like that. Our mind is not designed to solve life because there is no need to solve anything about it; life takes care of itself.

When you are feeling negative, or going through a low patch, just stay effortless. Your mind will urge you to do something, but just ignore it. Trust life and stay effortless. What is meant by “effortless”? Basically, effortless means stop trying to “know” and stop trying to “solve”. Live in the unknown and let life happen.

Action does not imply effort. Resistance implies effort. When life flows naturally, actions come forth effortlessly. Resistance is created through “thinking” and wanting to solve life, instead of letting it happen. The more you think, and try to solve, the more you resist what is.

Try this for yourself, whenever you feel negative just surrender completely. Let go of the need to figure out anything. If action happens let it happen, but don’t try to “know” or solve anything. If the mind complains or jumps about in alarm, just ignore it and stay effortless. Don’t “think”, and you will be amazed at how quickly the negative feelings go away. In fact, you will get some deep wisdom or insight from a situation which you perceived to be negative.