Sometimes you feel like Sisyphus, straining and struggling to have that rock as much as the top of the mountain, only to find it roll back down.
And sometimes you are so involved in what you are doing, that point itself ceases to exist, before you stop and realize, "Ohhhh yeah, I had been within the flow."
Exactly why is most everything this type of struggle?
Why is it so bloody difficult to get the flow?
To be able to present an answer to both of these questions, I'd like to connect the concepts of overcoming inertia and locating the flow for an epiphany I had in High School.
On the way to the baseball field for tryouts, I walked with the gym and saw the Hamilton High School gymnastics team dealing with their paces. I recognized one kid; to avoid slander, I'll just call him up Frizzy-haired Nerdy Guy, who had been doing an elementary "muscle up" on the rings crampon mercurial. Frizzy-haired Nerdy Guy taunted me, saying I could not do the trick he'd just done. Now actually, I had been pretty strong. Actually, I had set the record in Junior High for pull-ups, and so i jumped up and grabbed the rings with bravado and proceeded to struggle and strain and kick my legs around helplessly when i fought each and every ounce of strength to drag my body system up and I was going nowhere.
With the laughter from the Frizzy-haired Nerdy Guy ringing in my ears, I found myself around the baseball field, waiting to bat, then browsing the area for someone to hit me the ball. Just waiting, becoming the very principle of inertia, unchanged, in an existing state of rest until that state is changed by an additional force. What was the force? Frizzy-haired Nerdy Guy's laughter? My ego? My desire? My curiosity? My boredom? My life passing me by while I'm wasting my time waiting after i could in that gym DOING SOMETHING COOL!
And so i took off in the baseball field, ran within my cleats to the gym and signed up for the gymnastics team. I strained, I struggled, I ripped up my hands, I awoke every morning in excrutiating soreness, I embarrassed myself constantly, and also over time, I acquired better and better so that as I mastered each trick, I discovered the glorious flow. The magical moment when all that hard work and struggle and sophisticated thought leads to a magnificent ease and BAM, there' am inverted in perfect balance with people applauding. Countless moments of pain and frustration for any second of glory. And oh, how it was worth it.
In Taoism, the phrase "wu wei" means effortless flow. By going with the flow of nature, instead of fighting the laws from the universe we allow them to aid us within our action. "Wu Wei" makes the difficult look easy. It's as soon as where "Think. Think. Don't believe!" takes you to another level. Picture in your head any high-level athlete or performer you admire and they seem to defy the laws of physics; but actually they have learned how to efficiently rely on them.
Both of my children played Division 1 soccer in college. And both of them understand how in a 90-minute match, they may touch the ball as many as less than a minute chaussure de foot pas cher, so that as grueling as defeat could be, there's that magical moment when time doesn't exist plus they make that one play that makes it all worthwhile. I've seen it within their faces on the game-winning goal and the heavens open.
So be it gymnastics or soccer, or a yoga class or dancing or perhaps a project or activity that challenges you to overcome your inertia, you may struggle and strain, but when you find that flow, even if you just touch it for any millisecond, it's glorious, it's magical, as well as for a fleeting moment that you can recall if you require it, you're lifted through the wave, the wind reaches your back, and the world is spinning at your speed inside your chosen direction.
You aren't only a part of something greater, you're something greater.
So to really beat the sports metaphor up, you've two choices. Be the spectator and provide directly into inertia. Or get on the concept of play and discover the flow, whether it's commiting to a new fitness program or a new diet plan or using the necessary supplements to safeguard, cleanse and up-regulate the body, or reading that important book or starting that new program. The additional force to beat inertia and discover the flow isn't just within you. It is that you simply.