There is a lot of necessary talk about fundamental change right now. Thank goodness. It’s about time for ua all to look at ourselves, our beliefs and our behaviors and make some changes.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been really digging deep in every area of my life to see what needs to change. The word that surfaced this morning is what we’re willing to change — and to keep changing. To let go of — and to keep letting go of. To release forever. And then do it again.
My best friend uses this phrase a lot: Self will run riot.
Well, that pretty much describes our entire world behavior. Self will run riot.
Me. My way. My life. My outcome. My freedom. My POV. My will be done.
So I found myself wondering how the word will — as in insistence on and expectation a predetermined outcome based on one’s own agenda and beliefs — can soften into willingness.
Willingness to change. Willingness to see in new ways. Willingness to learn something new. Willingness to unpack out beliefs and jettison the ones that no longer serve our world. Willingness to put we before me.
We. Our way. Our lives. Our collective outcome. Our freedom. Our viewpoints. Our willingness to live Love.
Will says: My way is the right way. That’s the way I want it. so that’s how it should be.
Willing says: What is best for all of us? Is there a new way that serves us all? How can I change? How can I help?
Will is a closed fist.
Willing is an outstretched hand.
Will is a hard declarative statement.
Willing is a soft connective question.
Will is a hard boot on pavement.
Willing is walking softly upon our earth.
Mother Teresa captured the ethos of the willing when she said: “We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing.”
Indeed, to be willing requires inviting what is unknown to allow for the impossible to affect even those unwilling to change. But as Mother Teresa discovered — when we are willing, we learn to do so much with seemingly so little that the world begins to change one previously impossible increment at a time.
I think that so many of us imbibed the idea of human will as a sign of strength and character that we have forgotten that the people we love the most, the people we trust the most, the people we rely on the most are always the willing. Those whom we know we can reach out to when we need to feel the Power of Love. When the chips are down and push comes to shove in our own lives, we always reach for the willing not the willful.
Well, the chips are down and push has come to shove in our world.
So which side are we going to choose ourselves? To be the willful — firmly entrenched in “what I believe”? Or we the willing who keep showing up in love for our world?
Today my heart-centered practice is to commit myself to being one of many — we the willing — learning to do the seemingly impossible against the resistance of all the I’s who do not want to change. And trusting that we the willing will learn, day by day, that we are qualified to do anything with seeming nothing. As long as we are leaning into, led by, listening to and living LOVE.
I choose to be among we the willing. I choose Love.
