I see then all the time when I’m swimming in the pool, those little yellow bracelets--“Live Strong.” I hear it from so many people around me, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
But the strongest walls crumble, skyscrapers fall, the Titanic sank; it is the softest thing that does not break. I don’t want to be strong nor, Lance, do I want to live strong. I strive not to be a pillar but rather a droplet of water. I do not crumble, but when circumstances require it, I transform. Vapor or liquid or ice. Why this obsession with strength? The good ol’ Merriam Webster gives many definitions for strength, and many of them use the word “resist,” such as “the power to resist force.” But I don’t want to live life with power, I just want to live, laughing, crying, learning changing, responding to forces rather than resisting them.
Do I approach life like the bodybuilder, lifting more and more, resisting, fighting, conquering the physical form, or do I approach life like the yogi, stretching and adapting, listening to the truth within? Strength is sucking it up, grinning and bearing it. But I want to cry, cry when things hurt and sit in that hurt, truly feel it. And perhaps in doing so, in embracing this, I can do the opposite—I can exude joy from every cell of my being. I can allow my body to vibrate with my truth, with my experience. Feeling strong can be exhilarating, but being strong is limiting, just as being happy or being sad or being frustrated is. When we are being without an adjective, we can feel the spectrum of emotions within. We can receive our life experiences with an open heart and truly commit to learning what they offer.
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