A weekly newsletter to help high achievers reach their potential and make a difference.
Approaching life with lightness can help you climb out of your rut.
Earlier this week, I came across a quote by Aldous Huxley on approaching life with lightness. It snapped things into perspective and helped me climb out of a rut.
"It's dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you're feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly—it's the best advice ever given me...So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly."
When life gets heavy, we tend to overcompensate by trying too hard. We act as if all the responsibility falls on us. It’s not that we don’t have a measure of responsibility, we do, but when in crisis mode, it’s easy to over-emphasize our responsibility. We get caught up in the illusion that we have ultimate control, but how much control do we actually have? I'm convinced all we really control is ourselves and our response.
(And if we’re honest, sometimes we have a hard time doing that!)
Seth Godin addressed a similar theme in his Paradox of Expectations piece. High expectations, he says, usually lead to disappointment. Low expectations can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, why not consider having no expectations—intense effort followed by an acceptance of whatever you get in return.
Anything beyond that is vanity.
These two concepts, approaching life with lightness and having no expectations, partnered with my faith, are helping me climb out of a rut this week.
I hope they help you too.
Your Turn
Where are you trying too hard? What outcomes are you holding onto too tightly? Let it go. Laugh at yourself and your circumstances. Give it your best effort and accept what you get in return. Everything else is vanity.
PS - Buy Me a Coffee so I can keep creating!
Sources
Huxley, Aldous, Island
Godin, Seth, The Paradox of Expectations
