CAN WE MAKE OURSELVES AVAILABLE TO MORE POSSIBILITIES?
Photo by Rick Lewis
I’m a girl who loves outcomes. When I pay attention to my thoughts I find them more often focused on where I am going than where I am at. I like to have an agenda. I like to know what the “purpose” of something is, and be sure I’m working toward that in an intentional way.
None of this is inherently bad or wrong, but I have noticed over the years that in tending so strictly to these habits of the mind I often miss out on the possibilities of the unplanned, the unexpected, and the accidental. Slowly, slowly I’ve been learning to relax, settle in, and get curious about the unknown of an experience. It reminds me of the Buddhist concept of Beginner's Mind. The Zen Buddhist Shunryu Suzuki says, "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few."
