What if everything is as it should be?

What if everything is as it should be?

Phoebe and I were having masala dosas for breakfast at Mylari a few weeks ago, and were talking about whether to go to the Wisdom 2.0 conference in February. I bought the tickets as soon as they went on sale, but back then I didn't know we'd be living in India at the time. We were looking back over the past few years, the failed attempts at getting a visa for the United States, all the money we'd blown in the attempt to get it, and in an effort to spend as much time as possible in the US, without a visa and a real home. We felt like we'd failed somehow, and that if we were to go to the conference, we would need to up our game, we'd need to realize what we'd done wrong, and change it. It made us feel down.

But then this phrase came to me. It's a phrase I've used in the past, too, when things are difficult.

What if everything is as it should be? 

Steve Jobs got kicked out of Apple, and it was painful, but in the end, it was good for both him and for the rest of us. I didn't get the visa, and it was painful, but it made me move to India instead, and India has been amazing for us in a way that I'm certain the US never would have.

So when things look like they aren't going your way, instead of feeling sad and fearful around it, and thinking frantically about how to fix it, try instead asking the hypothetical question, "what if everything is as it should be?", and see how that changes your energy and your view of the situation.

Chances are it'll make you relax a bit, open yourself up to see new possibilities, realize that it's not about you, it's not threatening in any way, it just is, and you're just as capable and worthy as you were before, and there's some move you can make right now that will take you to an even better position than you would have been in, had things turned out the way you hoped.

Try it, and see what happens.