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.

One of the most difficult challenges in this being human business is facing what is. This is especially true when what is, sucks. I’m talking about times when life presents you with things you didn’t order and don’t want: like everything in 2020.

There's a country song with the catchy little phrase: "When was the last time you did something for the first time?" Those words have (annoyingly) stuck with me because, well, I haven't done very much at all for the first time in a long time. This is not good.

It’s counter-intuitive to take a blow without doing something, anything, to defend oneself. When your marriage is a mess or your body betrays you or you’re on a financial cliff edge, the tendency is to become two years old again and have a hissy fit.

It’s happened again. I’m at yet another crossroads, uncertain which direction to go. The genesis of my most recent ambivalence was the kind suggestion from an editor that I “put aside” my memoir and try my hand at fiction. Reading her letter, I felt all the energy ooze out of my body and onto the floor. Surprisingly, I wasn’t upset, but I was disappointed. Deflated. Now what?