391. To Accept Life

We are always moving. Even if we lie perfectly still, our hearts continue to pump blood and our lungs continue to breathe air. These movements cannot be suspended without also suspending our lives. We exist in time, and as time moves, we move with it.

Time moves in one direction only: forward. As such, there can be no question of our direction. It is always away from the past and towards the future. Noticing this and the uncertainty it brings, we want to escape from time. We want to find a way to maintain what we have despite time’s ever-forward movement.

But time always wins in the end. The only thing we discover by expending our lives on efforts to conserve and preserve is that we have lost everything of value. For what is truly valuable is life itself. Contrary to our desire for things to stay the same, life always grows and expands. It continuously works to create more than there previously was.

Our choice then was never between going forward or not, but between accepting life or trying to deny it. Denial takes the form of narrowly focusing on preserving and conserving what already is — a kind of stagnation no different from death. Acceptance means seeing ourselves as always-changing, as beings capable of becoming more than we already are. To accept life is to accept risk, for life is always a gamble on a future that we cannot fully know.

Accepting life means opening ourselves up to uncertainty and the vast range of possibilities it offers. For while things could go wrong, they could also go right, especially in ways we cannot anticipate. By accepting life, we give ourselves a chance to advance it, to grow and to discover more of the world and ourselves. We put ourselves on the path of creation, and in doing so, life rewards us with joy.