If You Need it, You Won’t Get it. If You Let it Go, it Will Come

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. G.K. Chesterton

If you need it, you won’t get it. If you let it go, it will come. Jerry Wise

I remember watching the movie “Cool Runnings” for the first time, years ago. I was laughing my guts out when Coach Blitzer suddenly said something that hit me like a ten-ton truck.

Derice, an aspiring Jamaican bobsledder, asked him why he had cheated years ago when he was disqualified in the 1972 Winter Olympics.

“I needed to get that gold medal,” he replied after a short but poignant silence.

“You know, Derice, a gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you are not enough without it, you will never be enough with it.”

This powerful philosophical bomb blew my mind. And it stuck to my memory for years.

Since then, I have seen this principle pop up in many areas of my life. Take relationships, for example.

One thing I learned over the years is this: If you are not enough without this person, you will never be enough with them.

If I walk around with an "empty cup" asking others to fill it up, it will remain empty.

How do I reverse it? How can I be enough when I feel lack?

It turns out the answer is quite simple: I must shift my focus from the feeling of lack to some abundance in the present moment.

Have you noticed that some people lighten everything up with their presence as soon as they appear at the door? They exude positivity and radiate sunshine. When you see them, you relax, start smiling, and forget about all your troubles.

And some people will immediately suck out all your energy the moment you see them. When you look them in the eye, you instinctively withdraw, shrink, contract, and tense up.

They exude negativity and radiate an inner vacuum.

What’s the difference between them?

The first category of people live out of the feeling of inner abundance, and the second one out of the “feeling” of lack.

Eckhart Tolle offers a paradoxical solution to this inner dilemma:

Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world…Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you already have.

In other words, you already have what you feel you lack. You just need to see it and give it away.

Jesus said,

Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be given to you.

Acknowledging the good we already have is the root of the feeling of inner abundance.

But what do I have right now, in the present moment, that I can celebrate and be grateful for?

Gratitude is a portal into a life of abundance.

But some days, it seems impossible not to focus on the negative. The emotion of lack is overwhelming.

G.K. Chesterton once sprained his foot so badly that he had to sit in his chair for several weeks in a row. While recovering, he wrote an ode to his other leg. His conclusion was,

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

I also noticed that as soon as I find at least one thing to appreciate, the next one pops up almost immediately. It gets drawn out by the “happy thought” I am already thinking.

As I ride my bike this morning, I am scanning the surroundings for something to appreciate.

A curiously shaped tree in the ditch caught my attention.

Hm… what a sweet fragrance! Where is it coming from?

I take a deep breath, and a happy thought pops up in my mind by itself - it’s Thursday! I am having a Zoom call with my good friends in an hour. I love our Thursday morning hangouts.

And then I put on my headphones and plunge into an audiobook - I am listening about the fall of Numenor in The Silmarillion.

I keep shifting my focus little by little until positive thoughts prevail in my consciousness.

By the time I get home, my mind is engaged in all sorts of uplifting thoughts.

And when I know how to engage myself, I become an engaging person.