“Do your best and let go of the outcome.” This was the advice of my fellow teacher and good friend, Jeff Goldman, as we were navigating what seemed like the impossible demands of our school in Washington, D.C. Jeff was older and wiser and lived a much more balanced life than I did at that time. I was wfinding myself burning out because I couldn’t do everything I was being asked at 100%. No one could.At the time, I think there was at least a part of me that heard Jeff’s advice and felt like he didn’t care as much as I did. Oh boy. That’s embarrassing to admit, but it is pretty accurate.
My unwritten rule was “Do your best and control the outcome. If the outcome isn’t what you wanted it to be, you didn’t try your best.”
Yeah. That’s pretty close to the way I lived.
The folly of that way of thinking is clearly visible at this stage of my life.
I’m twice as old now and I have had to come to terms with the limits of what I do control. In fact, I control almost nothing.
I love how Michael Singer describes the job we assume when we try to make life go our way:
“Just stop for a moment and see what you have given your mind to do. You said to your mind, ‘I want everyone to like me. I don’t anyone to speak badly of me. I want everything I say and do to be acceptable and pleasing to everyone. I don’t want anyone to hurt me. I don’t want anything to happen that I don’t like. And I want everything to happen that I do like.’ Then you said, ‘Now, mind, figure out how to make every one of these things a reality, even if you have to think about it day and night.’ And of course your mind said, ‘I’m on the job. I will work on it constantly’…
That is why your mind is so active; you gave it an impossible task to do.
You could actually live your life instead of fearing or fighting it.
You have given your mind an impossible task by asking it to manipulate the world in order to fix your personal inner problems.
If you want to achieve a healthy state of being, stop asking your mind to do this.
Just relieve your mind of the job of making sure that everyone and everything will be the way you need them to be so that you can feel better inside. Your mind is not qualified for that job. Fire it, and let go of your inner problems instead.
The keys to be quiet. It’s not that your mind has to be quiet.
You be quiet.
You, the one inside watching the neurotic mind, just relax.
You will then naturally fall behind the mind because you have always been there.
You are not the thinking mind; you are aware of the thinking mind. You are the consciousness that is behind the mind and is aware of the thoughts. The minute you stop putting your whole heart and soul into the mind as if it were your savior and protector, you will find yourself behind the mind watching it. That’s how you know about your thoughts: you are in there watching them. Eventually, you will be able to just sit in there quietly, and consciously watch the mind.
Withdraw your attention, and the thinking mind falls away.
Fall behind the noise.
Keep relaxing and releasing.
Just be there, noticing that you notice.
Just let go.” (The Untethered Soul, pp. 91-96)
Or, in the simple and lavishly wise words of Jeff Goldman,
“Do your best, and let go of the outcome.”
Today has been a day of giving, giving, and giving. In the reciprocal nature of things, there has also been much receiving as well, but I’m running on fumes as I finish writing.
I’m doing my best.
And, I’m letting go of the outcome.
Falling behind the noise of the mind.
Relaxing and releasing.
That’ll do.
This will do.
Peace.
