“…just because you’ve abandoned your hopes of becoming a great thinker or                      great scientist, don’t give up on attaining freedom, achieving humility, serving                     others…”                                               ~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.67

I’m at a stage in life where everything seems in flux. At 63 you’d think it would be otherwise, that I’ve got it all figured out and am set in my ways. Yet, it is just the opposite and I am completely energized and excited by it. The flux. The fluidity of life. As Marcus Aurelius implies in the above quote, the flux affords one an opportunity to regroup, to explore, to stretch. The abandonment of one thing opens the door to something else. There is no vacuum, only flow.

Epictetus, the ancient Greek philosopher, had a metaphor to explain the workings of the universe and our place in it. We are like a dog tied to a moving wagon. We can resist the pull of the wagon and be dragged and choked. Or we can go along with it. We have the choice, though obviously there are limits. (You’re going with the wagon one way or another!)  There is a similar notion in Taoism. Consider the stream flowing gently down the mountainside. Eventually it comes upon a boulder. Does the stream conspire to move the boulder, to resist the boulder? No, it simply flows around it and carries on. I find that thought generates great humility.

Don’t give up, counsels Marcus. Don’t give up on attaining freedom, achieving humility, serving others. You might have to abandon what you set out to do, but that does not mean resignation. Indeed, the more I align with the flow the less resistant I am, the more freedom I realize–and that is the antithesis of resignation. Humility comes naturally as one opens to the stream of existence, as does energy.

When you come up against the boulder, flow around it.