Surrender

I went to Québec City yesterday -- it's about a 3-hour drive each way if you include a small break in the middle to stretch your legs.  Have you ever noticed that if you try to go just a bit faster than most people on the highway, you end up having to weave in and out of traffic and the trip is so much more difficult, even if it ends up a bit shorter.  However, if you accept to travel at the speed that most cars are doing, you spend most of the trip in the right-hand lane, pretty relaxed except for the odd time that you need to pass a particularly slow truck.

It reminded me that I wanted to write a blog on the word "surrender".  Not a word that comes easily for me.  The first time someone pointed that out was back in 2000 during a trip to Vancouver.  I had met someone whose career path was considerably different from mine: in the summer he drove a tour bus and in the winter he picked up odd jobs to pay the bills.  He was the first to point out that sometimes you just had to surrender to life and the path it wants to take.

It's an important lesson and one that I frequently forget.  But when I do remember to surrender to the situations that are occuring in my life, to know the difference between what I can change and what I cannot, things just seem to become easier.  Especially when the things I cannot change are part of choices I have made.  For example, we bought an older home last year and I love having a big yard with lots of trees, shrubs and flowers.  Unfortunately so do the spiders that also enjoy the warmth of our house when the temperature falls overnight.  Should I spend all my energy trying to eradicate spiders from my house?  Or could I simply accept that we're going to have spiders and put my energy towards something useful?

So, I am going to surrender to the spiders.  Other than being "yucky", what harm do they really do?  And I am going to use them as a signal: every time I see a spider, I'm going to remind myself to surrender to the things that I can't or won't change.

Have a great day!