It will be due to Benedetto Croce with his “a man is what he does” (which to tell the truth we may have misunderstood), the fact is that a typical trait of modern man is his oscillation between acting and reacting. Basically our days, our lives in general, alternate between actions that start something and reactions that are instead the natural continuation, perhaps as a consequence, of what we did yesterday.
We have transferred this hyperactivity to everything. We have a problem? Well, we must act immediately or at least react. And woe to stand still. Which, for heaven’s sake, is not in itself something positive but neither is it something that is always decisive.
In fact, life shows us that in some situations, faced with some problems, some unsolved, faced with what we don’t understand and makes us frustrated by this, faced with all of this, the only right thing to do is to do nothing. . Strange but true. Trust me.
This reminds me of one of the most well-known stories about the Buddha, according to which one day the Master repeatedly asked one of his disciples to fetch him water from a lake; however, the latter did nothing but return to the Master every time, telling him that he had not been able to get the water for him because it was still too turbid as the lake, a few minutes earlier, had been crossed by an ox cart. After several trips back and forth, however, the disciple managed to find the water in flat calm conditions, the ideal ones for drawing clean water, and when he brought it to the Master, he asked him: “What did you do to clean it?”.
I answer this question for him; he did nothing. It’s a beautiful parable, perfect for explaining how, often, faced with the most intricate problems we struggle to find solutions with brute-force approaches that we mistakenly believe will lead us to a resolution sooner or later. But that’s not always the case. I repeat, I’m not here to celebrate laxity which is certainly not a trait of my character, but it is true that sometimes stopping, waiting, giving yourself time, for some problems, is the only solution.
And this in my opinion also happens for another reason for which we can once again exploit the parable of the Buddah or; what happens if we find ourselves in a muddy lake and stand still? It happens that, miraculously, after a few minutes we see our feet again. The same thing happens with the most intricate problems: if we breathe, if we stop, if we accept that we are spectators and not necessarily protagonists and let time take its course, when the waters calm down, we are able to see deeply, and thus we are able also to truly understand the problems, their nature, their interweaving. And perhaps the decisiveness of waiting also arises from this, or rather from the possibility that, in that way we give ourselves, to better understand these problems.
But there is more. There is that there are situations, problems, which perhaps concern us closely, very closely I would say, in which we cannot do a damn thing to solve them anyway. I know it’s frustrating, and you have no idea how much I’ve experienced it on my own skin. But it’s terribly true. Sometimes the only “survival” perspective of some of our hopes we have to place them on time, on its ability to heal certain wounds, to make us understand certain unresolved issues, to settle some accounts, to practically do whatever it takes to close a chapter maybe painful of our life, and move on to the next.
Miguel de Cervantes said: “Trust in time, which usually offers sweet solutions to many bitter difficulties.” Hell how true it is, and how hard it was to accept this principle of life. Yes, because to let time take its course, you must first admit that you are not infallible. To leave it to time, we need the humility to understand that our life is not all moved by our threads as we often tell ourselves. There is also something else that contributes to the script of our experiences, my lords. And then… To leave it to time, and this is perhaps the hardest part, you have to really love who/what you are fighting for. Sometimes time doesn’t have time (excuse the pun) to solve certain problems because maybe we were the first to give up, let go, we don’t have to wait. Deep convictions and boundless love are needed, and I assure you that time in the end is the best of gentlemen and knows how to reward the perseverance of those who love and the wisdom of those who wait.
