Meet this transient world with neither grasping or fear, trust the unfolding of life, and you will attain true serenity.

— Bhagavad Gita

I love it when I’m in the zone.

It’s effortless.

It just flows.

You know what I’m talkin’ about.

• You’re working on a project and everything just falls into place.
• You’re writing and the words spill onto the page.
• You’re painting and it’s as if the canvas paints itself.
• You’re having fun; you lose track of time; and the hours become like seconds.

I experience it sometimes when I climb. The moves reveal themselves and suddenly I’ve topped out. Or sometimes when I’m running, it feels as if  I’m being transported across the ground, like pure fluid motion.

It’s our natural state: Flow.

Why is it then that we fight it? Why is it that we make things difficult? Why is it that we choose to struggle? Why is it that we feel a need to wrestle everything to the ground?

As if we could really control any of it.

You know I’m not saying “Que sera, sera.”

I believe that we are called to pursue our dreams, to train hard, to take the risks, to push the edges, to grab the ring; to transform ourselves; to transform our world; to make our lives a masterpiece.

But, why can’t we believe that the Universe conspires for our success? Why can’t we trust that an Infinite benevolence wants for our good? Why can’t we rest in the natural order of things?

Life unfolds as it unfolds.

Struggle is optional.

“Sometimes I have to remember not to struggle,” said Ann breathlessly. We were running downhill after a long run up.

How true that is. We get caught in our struggles. And it’s so easy to stay stuck.

It’s so easy to stay in that state of struggle rather than to allow the magnificence that is.

“We are rather like whirlpools in the river of life, Charlotte Joko Beck writes. It’s when we try to dam up our whirlpools and cut them off from the larger flow, that we struggle. We suffer. We stress. We self-isolate. We cut ourselves off from one another. We cut ourselves off from the perfection that is the unfolding. We forget our true natures; we forget that we are part of the stream of life.

When we step into the flow, we allow for infinite possibility.

There’s a reason for that old round: Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.

It’s so much easier to be the river than to row against it.