Sometimes life doesn’t work out the way we want. It comes at us fast, and we’re left to deal with the consequences, whatever they may be.
There are times when we want the world to work in a certain way. When we wish the universe could throw around some magic that may work in our favor. For a love, a job, a dream. But rarely does the universe have the time to listen to us. It has its own needs and wants, constantly pulling and pushing us in the direction that has already been laid out for us. We don’t often have the chance to take life by the throat and make our own destinies.
But there’s a simple hack to this…
We can take back control when we give the universe something in return.
Maybe we won’t ever have full control over what happens to us. Maybe we have to bend to the universe’s wishes more often than not. But, there’s a but…
When we give something back, when we sacrifice, a new door opens for us. We create the room to accept something else into our lives.
I want to bring this back to a conversation I recently had with my oldest friend. He told me about how he’s been in love with a woman he’s known for years, but that she didn’t seem to feel the same way. Feeling this, still he struggled to move on because he believed a chance at love still existed. He remained caught up in her beauty and grace, even though he knew it might be best to get swept away by someone else’s.
The only way to escape, he told me, was to find out if she could ever love him, once and forall. He spoke to the woman, asked her if they could ever be together, and she let him down easy. It was only after that moment that he found his path for the future. He realized he must move on and find someone else to love.
As he explained it to me, he believes that he sacrificed the love he had for that woman for the sake of finding another. And not too long after, another woman walked into his life and made him happier than he ever dreamed possible. He gave the universe something big, and it brought him something bigger in return.
This may seem like a grandiose example, but it doesn’t make the concept any less true. Here’s another one, a smaller one, just for the sake of argument. Say you want to rearrange the furniture in your room. But you have clothes everywhere. You want to slide the dresser over, but your shirts and pants are hanging off of it and there’s a pile on the floor. You need to clear the space to enable your next move. Throw all of those clothes in a hamper, wash them and then hang them in your closet. Stow them away where they aren’t in your immediate view. Only then will you have the space to move your furniture. You must take away, you must sacrifice, in order to receive.
We can use this idea in anything we do. Want the universe to bring you success? Sacrifice time. Want to see a movie? Sacrifice money. Want to take someone out on a date? Sacrifice time and money.
We must be ready to give something up in order to receive something greater. If we hold onto something for too long, it’ll only break us down, slowly but surely. The life, thing, or person we want is waiting for us. The universe may not let us have it all, for this is a two way street. But if we give it our best, it’ll show us we always had something better waiting just around the corner.
