Wisdom of Surrender

As we hope for a better 2021, what in your life needs more effort... and what needs to be surrendered?

Our will -- a combination of our desires and deepest convictions about how the world should work -- faces mortal enemies and direct attack every day. It’s as if we live on the rack, stretched between our convictions about how our world should be on the one side and on the other, the experience of all the ways it falls short: sickness, failures, and loss.

I generally try to escape this tearing tension with greater effort: Try harder, work smarter. However, I’ve observed – and even tried a few times – a different approach. There is a surrender – an end of effort, a release – that can sometimes advance our deepest goals more fully than even our best efforts. We can choose to stop pouring energy into fruitless efforts. We can release injury in a spirit of forgiveness. Disappointments can be surrendered and transformed into peace. We can recast the deep longings that are so emotionally powerful as to pull our joy into blackness into a healthier, more peripheral role.

These shifts might be wise and beneficial, but that doesn’t make them easy - or intuitive. They generally still feel painful and are still a form of loss. As we hope for a better 2021, what in your life needs more effort...and what needs to be surrendered?