“Take it as it comes” is good advice. You don’t have a lot of choice in the matter anyway, so you might as well, right? That doesn’t mean not to work for things or to strive. It simply means that whatever comes, has come. You can’t do anything about it at this point so you might as well accept it with a smile and be gracious. It’s like those magenta, handknit mukluks Aunt Judy made for you last Christmas. Grimacing and rolling your eyes isn’t going to transform them into a pair of Doc Martens no matter how hard you try. So say thank-you and save up your own damned money. Judy worked on those things every night since Thanksgiving, you ingrate.
Everything is like this. But I’ve been struggling with it lately because while I think it’s great advice, I seem unable to apply it to my own life. Stuff happens and I think “take it as it comes,” and then I’m heartily disappointed in my own inability to do just that. I was meditating this morning and, as happens pretty often, it wasn’t the grand, golden moment of blissful unity I was hoping for. “Take it as it comes,” I thought to myself. “Shove it up your ass,” was the prompt response.
So what do you do when you can’t take “take it as it comes” as it comes? I appreciate the irony here, as well as the potentially infinite loop. How absurd, to tie yourself up in knots over tying yourself in knots.
I don’t have a good answer to this one, except that I’m trying to greet these moments with curiosity and a sense of wonder, even when they subjectively feel like crap.