Wet Again

I was out for a walk when I caught myself cowering from the rain. 

Face tilted down, shoulders hunched, hands stuffed deep into my pockets, as if I could disappear inside into the warmth and dryness. You know the look, I’m sure.

But that posture is quite uncomfortable, don’t you think? 

Tension in the neck, tightness in the back, and missing the world around you are paltry rewards for putting up a pointless resistance against the rain.

So I made a decision then and there: 

No more would I cower before the rain.

After all, it’s not like tilting your face forward really keeps you from getting wet.

So I straightened up, rolled my shoulders back, lifted my chin, and faced the rain. As you might imagine, the rain didn’t stop falling or pause to congratulate me on my bravery and defiance. The rain kept on being rain, falling steadily from the heavens.

But something else did change.

The tension eased.

The cold drops became a sensation rather than an inconvenience. 

And instead of feeling like a soaked, miserable creature scurrying for shelter, I felt… 

Steady. Comfortable. Amused at how much better this was. So much nicer to stand tall and accept the falling rain in all its wet, chilly glory than resist, resist, resist.

Steady. Comfortable. Amused at how much better this was. So much nicer to stand tall and accept the falling rain in all its wet, chilly glory than resist, resist, resist.

Something I’ve been mulling over for years. 

We humans have a nasty, unhelpful habit of resisting reality when we don’t like something. But unless there’s something you can genuinely change about the situation, resisting reality only ever creates (and prolongs) suffering.

Go with the flow, as philosophers the world over have preached for millennia.

The ever-insightful Tao Te Ching teaches that attachment to desires and clinging to outcomes is the root of pain. Peace comes from accepting the natural flow of life, including the hardships, without resistance. You meet the hard with the soft:

“The softest thing in the world overcomes the hardest thing in the world. 

That which has no substance enters where there is no space. 

This shows the value of non-action.”

With love from the forest,

~ Alexander