Building a Sidewalk That Flows

Shift your sail with the wind. ~ Italian proverb

A friend told me of a time when she attended a conference at a Toronto University, she so enjoyed walking through a huge grassy mall between the buildings. The area was landscaped beautifully, and the sidewalks were laid out in an interesting, irregular pattern.

When she had commented on this to her friend, he told her, “The sidewalks were designed by the people who walked on them. When the mall first opened, the architects did not designate sidewalks; instead they waited for a few weeks to see where students walked. After the engineers determined the footpath patterns, they laid down the sidewalks. They realized that no matter where they put the sidewalks, people would walk where they wanted and just trample the grass. So they decided to save themselves some work and make it easier for the pedestrians.”

The sidewalk designers understood that there is a flow to life, and when we are one with it, we are empowered. When we tune into the energy flow, we can use it to our advantage, rather than struggling to make the world fit into our expectations. The ancient Tao Te Ching, recorded by Lao Tse, is a magnificent poetic instruction book on how to be strengthened by changes.

Jungle lore tells that monkeys learned how to evade capture by making use of ease rather than force. Hunters would put some nuts in a glass jar with a rim smaller than its base. A monkey of inferior intelligence would reach into the jar and grab the nuts, but because the hand with nuts in it was too large to fit back through the rim, the animal would stand there struggling, and the hunter would grab him. The smarter monkeys, however, didn’t reach into the jar; they simply opened one palm and tilted the jar so the nuts fell into it.

If you are trying to clutch onto something that won’t fit into your life naturally, that’s when you get caught.

Accept what shows up, and you are free. Take advantage of the tide of events, and life will support you in ways that you could not manipulate through anxious struggle.

Build on what is, rather than what isn’t, and you will be one with life.