Abe Williams

Are you stressed? Are the responsibilities too much to bear? Are you frustrated because your life isn’t going the way it’s supposed to go? Are you just trying to get through the day? Do you find yourself not wanting to say hi to neighbors because you just finished a day you wish you didn’t have?

All work and no play makes a dull one doesn’t it. When everything looks like a responsibility and not a relief or a break or fun, then life feels heavy. I know.

I commuted to a job I could barely stand. It was about 4 hours every day of commuting and the work was all drudgery. I was afraid of leaving and kept that job so I could support our life in San Francisco. Our expenses seemed to grow each month. I tried to exercise every day to undo the stress, but I just exhausted and injured myself too often. I felt so trapped, but I sucked it up because that’s what parents are supposed to do I thought.

That sucking up caused so much secondary suffering. I ended up hating my life. I hated where I lived. Everything looked like a responsibility that would never let me go. It was a chronic and unrelenting stress that felt like a vise.

Thankfully, thankfully, thankfully, that all changed. Right now…

• I’m a father of 15 year old twin girls (I can’t believe how awesome they are); they are so much joy.
• My wife and I both work at full-time jobs.
• My wife recently had breast cancer and is taking tamoxifen (which causes a cascading series of unwanted effects).
• I have financial concerns for my kids’ school costs and have to have constant diligence.
• I am an active real estate investor working to find ways to grow the portfolio.
• I eat a regimented ketogenic diet.
• I do a regimented training schedule where I measure blood work, body composition, time under tension, and other things.
• I practice piano every day.
• The kids always have some kind of appointment or need some ride.
• I’m writing a book with a good friend and it’s requiring a lot of research.
• I meditate for 45 minutes every day.
• I have two small barking dogs that cause primarily happiness but also a lot of unexpected and strange work.
• I write on this blog.
• I try to surf every weekend, but Ocean Beach just pummels me.

Am I stressed? In moments I can be, but no. No, I am not stressed. I am happy. I’m doing more now than I have really ever done, want to take on even more, and I have never been happier. Almost everything I am doing is exactly what I want to be doing.

What’s the difference?

I learned to meditate. In meditation I learned what resistance is. I learned that resistance creates secondary suffering. I learned that when you accept how things are right now, resistance looses its footing. When resistance looses its footing, it can’t stand next to you with its blindfold over your eyes. When you accept your situation, you can see how things really are instead of repeating how bad things are over and over in your head. Acceptance is not a lack of action. It enables you to see the most meaningful thing behind what’s going on for effective action.

Resistance is the problem. When you resist something, you create a repetitive negative loop which can cycle over and over. When that happens, you become even more sensitive to notice negative scenarios and over time your outlook changes. When that happens, it’s hard to see the good around you.

When my negative thought cycles became visible, I could accept them, feel them and watch them ebb and flow to dissolution.

Resistance becomes visible because meditation teaches you to pay attention to your physical feelings in your body. That’s how I noticed it all. It was the physical feeling of stress.

Because I can accept the pains of the day and see them as transitory visitors, I can also see the incredible beauty in the life of my girls. I can see my wife patting the dogs with a high pitched voice and see that beauty, too. Also, I know that all the people I run into during the day are stressed. I know where they are mentally as the pedestrian curses the cyclist and the cyclist curses the driver, and so I have compassion for them.

For the difficult conversations I used to put off because they were uncomfortable, I now find them to be the single most productive things I can do. There all the little things you knock off your task list and then there are the difficult conversations that change the direction of your life.

I wish I had learned to meditate much, much earlier in life. I’ve heard it said somewhere that the first best time to do something was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

At some point in my life I acquired the notion that to live well is to live with riches.  Looking back on when this notion actually became part of my everyday thinking, I can’t help but wonder how much of my time I have spent unwisely.  One must take care of one’s needs and that I believe is without question.  For if one cannot provide for oneself, how could one provide for another?

When I speak of spending my time unwisely, what I mean to convey is that each moment spent being dissatisfied, while completely a human thing to do, is a moment used inappropriately given that our time and capabilities while we live is finite. 

Imagine that you are now old and feeble.  Imagine that your entire life you have spent grumbling against the world or some such other perceived unhappy thing and now you are too old to do anything about it.  You have few choices.  The first choice is to accept the situation you are in.  The second choice is to resist the situation.  Is there a third or all the other alternatives just shades of the first and second?  I believe they are only shades cast by either tree.  Physically speaking, those two choices are the physical actions you take.  Lay back and relax or try to get up.  You can accept or you can struggle.  I may be criticized that I am being a reductionist, but this entire example is quite simple so let’s not waste time further. 

Now, the question is that with each action is there a mental idea that accompanies it?  In the first, if the situation is accepted then the mind is resigned and then can look for another activity.  In the second, if the situation is resisted, then the situation is focused on.  It is twisted and turned and the challenge to overcome ensues.  Joy can result briefly.  However, as you are old, one problem is quickly replaced by another.  You must struggle again.  Eventually, your capabilities ravaged slowly by age, will fail you and anger and sorrow will result.  

 So which is the better path?  Acceptance or struggle?  It seems that the outcome of struggle is likely pain.  However, is acceptance giving up?  Is it giving in?  Let’s hold that question and take the same example above and apply it to you as a young person.

In the same scenario, but with your body and mind young, is it best to accept or struggle?  Surely, with the capabilities of youth, the struggle is not as hard as when you are at the end of your body’s time.  You can deal and dispatch with struggles daily.  You can have a string of joys for each problem solved.  It can even become your greatest strength, this constant solving of problems.  But, put time in and let it run for years.  Consider that with each problem solved, you become more and more confident and happy in your abilities.  You may even become well known for your abilities to solve and fix this or that.  You may revel in this light of appreciation from others.  But what happens in time? 

In a very short time, an extremely short time, you will find yourself in the same example as the old.  Will you not?  You may die young and be spared aging, but that is not often sought by most.  You will most likely reach a physical frailty.  You may not even be old when this occurs.  All of your confidence and strength have been in what you could fix and solve.  What then will you do when you cannot solve and fix things any longer? 

Now, we are back to asking ourselves if it is better to struggle or accept.  What happens when things are accepted?  What happens in that relaxation?  Is it giving up?  Is it weakness?

If a child wants a toy and takes many paths to acquire it, but because of some barrier, another child or an adult keeping the toy away, the child stops seeking it.  They may have given up, but more likely, they have only stopped the current physical seeking and once the door is open will go after again.  In this case, the child is coveting the toy and has clearly not given up.  In that coveting, there is the struggle. 

So, what would accepting be?  Are we ready to talk about this?  Accepting would be allowing the situation to be as it is and not taking up a struggle against it.  As a car is coming down the street and their way is the right of way, one accepts this before crossing the street.  Once the car has passed and the way for you is clear, then you go. 

When a glass full of water is knocked from the table by a careless movement and water and broken glass spread quickly across the floor, there is a moment before the mind judges the appropriate response.  Watch closely as this is where the difference lies between struggle and acceptance.  The path of resistance is anger at what has happened.  It should not have happened.  Now, we have work to do that is completely unplanned and those careless movements should be stopped.  It is a personal attack.  Now, the cleaning must be done with multiple tools and it will be messy. 

The path of acceptance is noticing the fall and the break and the spread.  It is knowing that it is best to clean it and that the careless movements should be trained. With acceptance, there is not resistance. There is a clear look at the problem and the pain. From this clear point of view, many options can appear.

When resistance is the path, there is struggle. With acceptance, there is no struggle…just awareness and a choice of how to respond.