The difficult assignment of being who you are

“Become what you already are.”
~ St. Gregory of Sinai

“To change radically means waking up to reality as it really is, not as we presume it is.”
~ The Monks of New Skete, In the Spirit of Happiness

No one tells the seed to change. No one would call him incomplete, lazy, disappointing. He just is. He is exactly as he is meant to be. Perfect. Beautiful. A miracle of cosmic engineering.

He lives, our seed friend, as he is, in absolute acceptance, sure of himself, in harmony with his environment. He doesn’t strive, he doesn’t go against his nature, he doesn’t grasp. He hasn’t asked himself yet if he’s doing it wrong. He just is.

And yet…

Precisely because our seed friend is so deeply interconnected, because he is so good at being one with the universe, because he rests easy in his place in the whole, change–profound change at that–is inevitable.

We worry, I think, that we’re not doing the things we’re supposed to be doing. We lament that we haven’t yet found a cure to cancer in our basement laboratory, that we don’t spend every Tuesday afternoon handing out hoagies to the homeless. We are fairly certain that we’re supposed to have headed up a youth initiative or lobbied Congress to save the whales by now, but we don’t appear to have left the couch. It can be a bit disheartening.

This might not be you. Possibly this is my own unique hell, but I don’t think I’m alone. For some of us, we live in the tension of thinking we should be doing 8,000% more on thirteen different fronts, and–let’s face it–reality.

For us, for the overthinkers and underachievers, I think there’s a lesson or six in the content of the seed.

Is it possible that the important part is in the connection? Is it possible that our primary objective is staying tuned in, keeping with the flow, holding fast to our little corner of the web? Could it be that like the seed, change will come to those who are open to it?

I’m just saying… I’m not the same person I was 20 years ago. 20 minutes ago. Evolution is, mercifully, a thing that happens. Change comes. Slow breaking waves massaging our neuroses through the decades. Hard-hitting cyclones upending who we thought we were and revealing new bits we didn’t know were in there waiting to get out.

We are what we are. Nothing more. I have strong suspicions that the cure to cancer won’t be ushered in through the vessel that is me. But there are other miracles that will, so long as I can keep the channel open and become who I already am.

“Work with what you have. Exist in this world. Be the asymmetric square. Be the wonky tree. Be the real you.”
~ Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“A practice is the embodiment of an approach to a concept. This can support us in bringing about a desired state of mind. When we repeat the exercise of opening our senses to what is, we move closer to living in a continually open state…
To deepen this practice is to embark on a more profound relationship with Source. As we reduce the interference of our filter, we become better able to recognize the rhythms and movements around us. This allows us to participate with them in a more harmonious way.
When we take notice of the cycles of the planet, and choose to live in accordance with its seasons, something remarkable happens. We become connected.
We begin to see ourselves as part of a greater whole that is constantly regenerating itself. And we may then tap into this all-powerful propagating force and ride its creative wave.”
~ Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being