The Universe is such a party pooper sometimes, offering us precisely what we ask for. And potentially what is good for us.

Many, many moons ago I started asking for things like patience, clarity and balance. Now, the Universe is not known to place fish on our plates, but to rather stick a fishing rod in our hands and dump us in a fishing boat rocking on waves to have us figure it out. If you think about it, it is also an efficiency hack on the part of the Universe, they are making sure we are never asking again. Empowering, not codependency. Smart Universe!

A month into my new job I am learning plenty about patience and balance. Almost minute by minute, every day, I start sprinting towards goals I can see in what I think is a near distance, only to hear the Universe whispering “This is a marathon, slow down. Things in your vision are farther than they appear.” And nothing, NOTHING, pisses me off more. If the Universe were in front of me, I would slap them silly.

In this boat that the Universe has placed me in nowadays, I find myself not only trying to teach myself how to fish but also watching people I love suffer and go through growing pains, without even as much as a boat. They are in the water. I almost feel physical pain to see others go through struggles I have experienced and not intervene to push them out of suffering. I have to literally hang on to a metaphorical chair to keep myself from putting on the superwoman costume. And that would be really funny because I am not superwoman. It would just be a middleaged, slightly overweight midget in a really tight funny costume.

As I spent some time with a dear friend listening to the struggle of a beautiful and sensitive person in this world that can chew you alive and spit your soul out in shreds, as I am looking at our beautiful son navigate his way through teenage brain and relationships, as I look around at what I know I can do in the beautiful workplace I landed in, I am reminded of this story:

“A man spent hours watching a butterfly struggling to emerge from its cocoon. It managed to make a small hole, but its body was too large to get through it. After a long struggle, it appeared to be exhausted and remained absolutely still.

The man decided to help the butterfly and, with a pair of scissors, he cut open the cocoon, thus releasing the butterfly. However, the butterfly’s body was very small and wrinkled and its wings were all crumpled.

The man continued to watch, hoping that, at any moment, the butterfly would open its wings and fly away. Nothing happened; in fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its brief life dragging around its shrunken body and shrivelled wings, incapable of flight.

What the man – out of kindness and his eagerness to help – had failed to understand was that the tight cocoon and the efforts that the butterfly had to make in order to squeeze out of that tiny hole were Nature’s way of training the butterfly and of strengthening its wings.

Sometimes, a little extra effort is precisely what prepares us for the next obstacle to be faced. Anyone who refuses to make that effort, or gets the wrong sort of help, is left unprepared to fight the next battle and never manages to fly off to their destiny.”

― Paulo Coelho

Trusting in the strength of buterflies is turning out to be the hardest thing I have done in a very long time. Universe, I love you! I hate you!

Photo by Rishabh Dharmani on Unsplash