Aren’t we all pretty desperate to find something to hold on to?
So much so, in fact, we often hold on to the wrong things. At least in the sense that we think they will give us something they cannot give us.
The most obvious example may be the past. It is easy to think that something in the past will give us something we need, if we just hold on to it long enough.
Or, sometimes we think a certain behavior will do the trick (it worked before, so...). Often, it is certain belief or system of belief that will do it.
But, whatever it is, in most cases, it doesn’t…primarily because it can’t.
This is true because most of what we actually need is something dynamic in the present. If we follow the metaphor of ‘holding on’, perhaps one that would serve us more would be ‘reaching for’. What will we extend our ourselves to reach for in our time of need? Whatever it is, it is more something that we need to continue to discover than something that we need to try again. In other words, our need is time sensitive, and it is something that we need now, not necessarily something that we needed in the past.
This is often somewhere between unsettling and frightening to us, largely because we don’t know exactly where that leaves us. And because of that uncertainty, we are tentative. Discovering (or rediscovering) what we need is an on-going process much more than it is the thing we had at one particular point.
The past is often an infatuation with outcomes, even if those have been largely imagined. Outcomes don’t play as well with the future because the future is unknown. So, it’s really what we do in the present moment that makes the difference.
What is it that I need to reach for, out my actual need, right now? That is an open posture, one capable of receiving something slightly (or completely) unknown. Holding on to the past is a closed posture towards our receptivity to the future.
But, we want something...so bad.
And, we actually have it, if we are willing to stop holding on to something else.
