adrienneDetermination without surrender leads to an outwardly successful life, with internal pain and suffering
Surrender without determination leads to a peaceful life, without achievement
There’s a false choice between wishing for a peaceful life (via surrender) or a great one (via determination ).
Like most westerners, I grew up in a society that valued determination over surrender. I worked hard at school, got a good degree, had good high paying jobs, got married, started a family, bought a house etc, lived the American dream. Internal peace (mental health) , however, was not always present.
But I’ve been lucky to have eastern influence in my life as well, which taught me the value of surrender.
If you at all ever feel tortured between ambition and drive and wanting peace inside your self, just know it’s possible to find balance.
Some things that have influenced me.
- Best book I’ve read on this topic is eastern body western mind.
- Met with a Buddhist lama in Mongolia who made this concept of balance very clear to me , I wrote about it: (https://adrienneshulman.medium.com/notes-from-mongolia-part-2-8f0a688f215a)
- I delivered 3 babies without pain medicine, my internal mantra to get through the physical discomfort was “surrender”, later used the same concept to get through other hard times in life
Thanks @downshift.eth for the thinking prompt 🙏
Also, should note that there’s no judgement for people who don’t seek balance - if people are comfortable with more determination or more surrender in their life that’s great. Only for people who lean one way but feel something is missing, a rebalance between the two could be very beneficial
