The Rhythm Of Life - Grasshopper

I’m sure I’m not the only one who ever noticed that the rhythm of life is always moving, and it’s only moving in one direction: Forward!

When you’re moving with it, life is harmonious. When you’re not, life feels like a plot – against you. Reminds me of a story . . .

 

When I was a teenager, I used to go to a dance on Friday nights at a roller rink. There were over a thousand kids there every week. We did line dances. When you witnessed all those dancers doing the same move to the same beat at the same time, it looked like a choreographed, Hollywood sound stage. It wasn’t – just tons of teenagers in rhythm with the music. It was a sight, sound, and feeling to behold.

 

Conversely, if you ever played “musical chairs” at a party and you were out of rhythm when the music stopped, you got beat out of your seat and were left behind.

 

Life is always moving. It’s like a river, not a pond. Like an old Chinese saying goes, “You never step in the same river twice.” The pond, for the most part, is still and becomes covered with scum.

 

The movement referenced here isn’t activity for activity sake; that’s just playing “Ring Around the Rosie.” We’re only going in circles and then we all fall down.

 

The rhythm of life is invisible, yet it’s in constant motion like the wind. When the force is behind you, your journey is smooth. When it’s coming at you, head on, your progress forward is slowed to a crawl.

 

So how do we stay in the rhythm of life and keep moving forward? The answer is simple but not always easy. Respond to reality, not react to it.

 

A reaction has us fight with the wind. A response lets us join with the rhythm of reality – which is the rhythm of life – and keeps us from doing life’s most ineffective dance: Two steps forward and one step back.

 

“Go with the flow” seems trite and we’ve been conditioned to think it means we have given up. We haven’t. We’ve just surrendered to the rhythm of life, and by doing so we get to live another day, one where the wind starts blowing our way.

 

Let me end this with a line from a Bob Dylan song: “The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind.”

 

All the best,

John