On Taking Charge

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference"

(The Serenity Prayer)

Will you be bothered if you visit a friend’s messy house?  Will you take any action to clean up a little or give advice how things should be instead?

Too often we have opinions of how things should be even though we are just visiting a place. We are bothered by the dirty environment and by rules that don't make sense to us. We somehow forget that we are just visiting.  We want to take action and we want to interfere, we want things to function just as it makes sense to us. Too bad that the people we want to help get mad at us. We don't even realize that we are acting in an arrogant way.

We interfere with our friends when we think they are not doing so well.  We totally forget about their strengths and their way of looking at the world. In doing so, we also put ourselves above them. When we step back and respect the place we are visiting and our friends’ learning cycle, all of us are suddenly at peace. There is a time to help our friends with our perspective and there is a time for us to adopt a new perspective on life. There is also a time just to let it be. Learning is mutual and it happens naturally.

Relax and center yourself. Recollect your energy, breathe and let things unfold by themselves. Let everything evolve occurring to its pace. There is a time to teach, a time to learn and a time to do nothing. As we watch everything unfold, suddenly things fall into place. We take actions only when they come naturally to us; we take action only with deep love and respect. No worries, the Tao is at work and everyone is included.

By Christian and Su Zhen