Surrendering is getting out of your own way. Far from giving up, true surrender is liberation: freed from a limited perspective of “it must be this!” surrender opens us to something more.

The French, it is frequently noted, take the entire month of August for a holiday. Unlike Americans, they are not sensually challenged: their language is gorgeous, they treat food as a worthy pleasure and not some glob to be mindlessly scarfed while driving, they drink wine at lunch and dinner and they don’t blink at the idea of a mistress.