Resistance is Futile

I’ve been thinking a lot about resistance lately. What exactly is resistance? Well, in an electrical circuit (yeah, I’m going nerdy, but bear with me), resistance is a material that slows down the flow of the current. Obviously, that’s what resistance is in everything: Something that stops the flow. And what happens when there is a lot of resistance? Friction, heat, stress, pressure, accumulation, tension, etc.

Well, the same thing happens when you resist life. Yeah. Life has a flow. Your life flows like an electrical current, or air, or water, and although you have some control, you don’t have all of it. In fact, most of it. Nope; very little control of the flow of life. For example, imagine you’re a river and you’re flowing freely when suddenly, a branch falls and blocks your path. What does water do? Find another path. But imagine if water resisted… And that’s what a lot of people do. We RESIST the flow of life. And when we resist, we create friction, heat, stress, pressure, accumulation, tension, etc in our lives. I’m sure you can extrapolate where that can lead you.

So why do we resist? It’s like that old saying “God grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change,” and we cannot change that flow. So why resist? Just flow serenely. Really! Just realizing this is like, wow! Just stop resisting those changes that are out of your control and flow where it’s taking you. Stop resisting. Let yourself go where life is taking you.

This is especially important when other people make decisions that affect you, but are not yours and therefore out of your control. A person who resists will cry, yell, ask why a thousand times, etc. Some go psycho.

Just yesterday my son was being super annoying because I gave his older brother the hardcover notebooks and gave him the softer ones (yes, he did that). “But why did you give HIM the hardcover ones? Why didn’t you get me hardcover ones? Why didn’t you ask me if I wanted hardcover ones? Why did they have to be different?” (Not the point, but note that he was given the opportunity to come shopping with me and pick the notebooks himself and chose NOT to go. There’s another blog subject: decisions) He was RESISTING. I made whatever decisions and he was RESISTING. Creating friction, tension, stress, and pressure.

At this point in this example, and probably in all examples, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. The decision was made, it could not, and would not, be changed. What do you get out of complaining? What do you get out of RESISTING? Nothing good. Repeat, nothing good. You get stress, and pressure, and pain, and pent-up energy and it will only harm. And just like my son was resisting, adults resist lots of things too. We are constantly resisting our own flow.

Of course, it happens to all of us, and sometimes it’s completely normal to resist a little, but eventually you need to keep flowing. We cannot continue resisting for months and years. It will make you sick, either in the body or the mind, or both. What happens to water when it stops flowing? Nasty shit.

So stop resisting. Flow with life where it takes you. Ride it as best you can and flow. Really, resistance is futile.