something you cannot out-think or out-run

What will happen when you encounter something in your life that you cannot out-think and you cannot out-run? Many of you are facing something like this now - something that keeps you awake at night, your brain racing like a rat in a maze. Something that scares or discourages you. Something that makes you feel stuck.

It seems a strange thought for a time when we are all supposed to be bravely trumpeting the wonders of the coming year, the triumph of possibility and the return of the light. It is a time of year that is custom-designed for the self-help gurus (for individuals and for businesses) who offer such mesmerizing visions of control that we forget, for a few moments, that life does not permit control. There is always something waiting around a corner - something that we cannot out-think and we cannot out-run.

If you are reading other people this week, ask yourself: How will this be helpful to me when I most need the help? How will this be useful to me when none of my other tools are useful? What will this give me when brain power and speed are not enough?

There are answers. People turn stuck into amazing things. People between a rock and a hard place find out that there is no such thing as a solid surface. They learn that they can cope, that they can manage, that they can smile. They learn that will - as in free will or will power or the will to live - will endures and will creates and will gets people past the moments they can neither out-think nor out-run.

Will is more than instinct, although it draws on immense unconscious resources. Will is more than thought, although it pulls thoughts into being (where there's a will, there's a way). Take a moment today. Focus on what you will.

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