The Journey to Enlightenment Begins with Acceptance.

Patience is a virtue, but so too is acceptance. Man cannot control the breeze any more than he can control the trees and the life within it. He can be patient as he tries to move the tree, but it is only through acceptance that he realizes he does not have the power to move it all.

This was something I wrote down following a morning meditation, deeply inspired by Buddhist teachings. We focus so much on patience, yet so often leave out acceptance. To live presently is to embrace both. Man doesn’t ask why the tree doesn’t move, so why should he ask why any other living thing should? It is not in our power to control other natural or unnatural things, but only to control ourselves.

Manifesting a positive outcome can easily be confused with forcing it. We desire something so strongly, we find ourselves pushing against a tree; stubbornly expecting that with just enough force we can make it budge. It defies all logic but we find ourselves doing it anyways. No amount of patience can move the tree.

Just as the tree cannot move, we do not have the power to move the events, people and things in our lives. We must accept them presently as they are, and navigate them by focusing on the self and how we react to them in the present. This is acceptance, we accept the tree cannot move. Other things can move, but not because we force them. Other things move as they naturally should.

Manifestation is about embracing a positive mindset and willing things into existence, but it is not through force that we achieve this. By accepting the present, we focus only on the self and in doing so return to the center. By being our grounded selves, accepting the state of all things, and remaining committed to a positive mindset you attract good things into your life– as they are meant to be.

Let go of the tree. When you inevitably return to it as life throws you challenges and disappointment, you will let go faster and with greater realization than before until you reach that destination of enlightenment and no longer reach out to push at all.