There are 100 days between the first day of autumn and the last day of the year.
What will you do with them? I’ll tell you what I’m going to do with them:
I’m going to stop trying to see around corners.
Whew, it’s exhausting! Have you tried it?
We can sprint, strain, maneuver, overthink and wear ourselves out this way.
Yes, work!
Yes, plan!
Yes, execute!
But I’m saying ‘no more’ to trying to see around corners. When I look back on life and its turning points, no matter how I might have tried to connect dots, I could have never conceived of the masterful orchestrations that played out. Look at your life. I’m certain if you look hard enough, you’ll see that’s true for you, too.
Of course, autumn isn’t quite here. Yet as we cross the threshold into September, there will soon be a soundtrack of fallen leaves under foot. A tree will drop its last maple leaf. There will be hot cider in Michigan, kids bobbing for apples in New England, then ice skates, mittens, hockey and snowmen. If we’re lucky, then spring and summer again.
Peace, Presence and Impermanence
Unlike a life spent clawing, stretching, craning to glimpse the invisible road ahead, the change of seasons offers lessons in peace, presence and impermanence.
There is peace in accepting and loving what is, as Byron Katie teaches.
The lesson of presence is displayed in doing now what is to be done now. Mother Nature does her autumn work of shedding leaves and letting go. She does not try to do winter’s work, and summer’s work, and springtime’s work. There’s a time for that. She does her autumn work, and she does it well.
Autumn evokes reminders of impermanence too. The topic brings some of us a sense of deep anxiety if we resist it, or calm if we accept it.
Homeostasis and Allostasis
As humans, we often bristle at change. We want and even crave stability (summer, please don’t go!) and homeostasis — defined (by an article published in the National Institutes of Health) as a process by which biological systems maintain stability while adjusting to changing external conditions.
What’s real, even within homeostasis, is change.
Allostasis, as I understand it, feels more akin to impermanence. Allostasis is defined (by the National Institutes of Health) as the adaptive response of the body to challenges or stressors. This process of adaptation is about achieving stability through change.
The seasons are an example of this.
On Rugged Flexibility & The Neuroscience of Expectations was the title of a recent Rich Roll podcast episode with guest Brad Stulberg. Stulberg is the author of the book Master of Change, and he wrote in a social media post recently that the average adult experiences more than 35 major changes. Stulberg also explained that research shows, if you look at vital thriving systems, they don’t follow the path of order-disorder-order. Instead, there’s a process of order-disorder-reorder. So, we stay stable not by resisting change, but by changing.
Change
What if we could accept that change is the way — that the obstacle is the path? What if we could trust that the fallow times will be followed by bountiful yields?
Just as the stoic maple tree sheds her leaves, so too can we shed our attachment to knowing every step, to understanding every nuance of change and to seeing around corners.
We can focus on doing now what needs to be done now. We can focus on loving ourselves, our people and our life now.
And in doing so, we’re living in presence and giving a wink to impermanence so as to say, I know you’re there. But for now, I’m here, and I’ll live this life — fully and joyfully— today and for all of my tomorrows.