To accept or to push – what is the limit?

“If I return to Europe I’ll be bored sick straight away,” she said. “Here I am fighting for a revolution, for freedom, equality. I can die and know that I’ve lived.”

Kimberley Taylor, foot soldier for YPJ, Northern Syria

I am, a big believer of using challenges to engage my will power.  But as I sat at home today on a rather snowy spring day, the following question arose in me in contemplation – at what point do I stop pushing and accept the reality of my life or situation (or both).

Very early on in my life, I came to the conclusion on how I didn’t want my life to look – estranged from others, struggling with money – leading a quiet life of desperation.  It took awhile to realize with all of the energy focused on what I didn’t want, I was neglecting the opposite possibility; how I did want my life to look?

So about 12 years ago I began to make radical changes in my way of being in the world.  I stopped lying to myself and made  difficult decisions that had an impact on the lives of people I loved.  If a challenged brought fear up in me, I moved into the fear  to break the “old beliefs” that had been apart of my psyche.  Like a pendulum, swinging from one extreme to another, I wanted to find the equilibrium that would bring balance to my life.

So as the snow falls, I can feel that I’m still in motion; swinging with life’s ebb and flow.  Wondering:

Do I keep pushing for the change I want to see?

Or

Do I accept what is there and stop the swing?

Watching the flakes whirl about as if possessed by some devilish dance.  I can’t help but imagine that I too am whirling through space looking for what it means to be alive.  What is the edge I must walk to feel life, yet at the same time, be able to accept what lies before me.  A place where I know that I can see both possibilities – to stop the swing or to push forward.

Gladly, this is a choice that I can make and not a choice made for me.  For some of us, we are whirled about not by choice, but rather by the actions of others. There is nothing to contemplate.

Can I accept that?