You Don’t Have To Fix Everything

Can I be honest with you?

I am sick of fixing everything. I have spent my whole life fixing everything and everyone, especially myself. No one can identify an area for improvement faster than me, and I used to think that was a gift. Now I think it’s exhausting.

What if we just stopped? What if we noticed that we didn’t feel good or were unhappy and just accepted that this one day out of the tens of thousands that we will live is not going to be one that we feel like everything is perfect? I mean, would that really be so bad?

I thought that the way to live the life of your dreams was to control every detail. What I’ve learned lately is that this is an illusion. In a perfect world, would you really want to be spending 24/7 obsessing over the details of things you can’t control, but try to? I wouldn’t.

I think the illusion is that if we obsess over the details, then eventually, at some undisclosed time in the future, we will be able to relax, enjoy, and reap the benefits of the years of stress. I’m here to tell you that that is wrong.

If you have lived your whole life believing that it is because you controlled every detail that you were able to live the life you want, then you would have to also believe that if you stopped, everything would go to hell. So you won’t. You’ll never relax, enjoy, and reap the benefits; you’ll just continue your years of stress.

I learned this recently. It felt impossible for me to stop trying to control everything because I thought that control meant success, love, happiness.

Then something happened. I got tired. I got sick of fixing everything. So, I stopped. I stopped controlling. It was not easy. But I was tired. And so I stopped. And guess what? Life got better.

All of the things that I thought came from trying so hard and chasing and controlling came faster and easier and better. I moved through my days doing what feels good, prioritizing my happiness, prioritizing flow.

Flow meant that when I had a bad day, I realized it was okay to have a bad day. Flow meant that I did what felt good for me, not because someone else told me I should do it. Flow meant that if something did not go the way I hoped or planned, it did not mean that there is something to fix.

The truth is that everything is unfolding perfectly. I’ve heard that before, but I couldn’t see it and so I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that I could really stop finding every problem, everything that was not going how I planned, and stepping in to correct it. It was a terrifying thought.

If I didn’t fix it, it would stay broken.

Now I know that nothing is broken. The nature of the Universe is to flow in perfect harmony. It was doing it before you and it will do it after you. It wants to do it in your life too! It is our obsessive need to “fix it” that is interfering with the flow.

So I ask you, fellow fixer: What are you always trying to fix? What would happen if you stopped? I think you should try it.