It’s one thing to say we will act, and not be attached to what happens next. It is another thing entirely to actually engage in this practice. We have an easy example to turn to today.
Did you turn your clock back over the weekend? If so, you probably practiced non-attachment. Or at least engaged in it to some extent. If you “fell back” before going to sleep on Saturday night and adjusted your clocks so that when you woke up you would already be in adjusted time, you were not attached to the differences the one-hour time change would make.
At the other end of the spectrum, if you failed to do this, changed your clocks some time on Sunday, or even Monday, so that you would be ready for the work week, you may have been attached to the current time zone and tried to resist the change.
Maybe you despise what Daylight Savings Time represents: Reduced daylight and Winter on its way. Maybe you did change your clocks but kept mentally telling yourself what time it was “without” that one hour adjustment. Think for a moment about how you approached this impending change to our clocks and you may gain insight on how well you practice non-attachment.
In yesterday’s post, I shared a humbling experience about providing a lecture in which I was attached to the idea that a live audience would help provide me with the feedback and energy current that I’d come to rely on for “success.” I described how that experience helped me grow into a space of understanding that I couldn’t control all of that, only how I showed up.
For today, see if you can step back and be the observer of how you chose to approach this seemingly random, non-personal “change” of adjusting your clocks. Were you able to roll with it, no hesitation? Or are you still looking at your clock telling yourself it is actually “9pm not 8pm” of course I am tired? Or playing those mental games of resisting the change?
If you are so inspired, this may give you a window of insight into your own ability to be unattached. Obviously, attachment is linked to circumstance and our feelings about a change. The more invested we are emotionally, the harder it can be to roll with it. But if we practice some self-inquiry in an arena that is not personal, we can begin to illuminate how well we are able to stay unattached to outcome.
Doing this in situations that are not intimately and emotionally charged, can help us strengthen our non-attachment muscles so we can increase our skills and apply them toward more personal situations, like giving a talk, regardless of whether or not there is feedback. Or better still becoming independent of the good opinions of others, or developing a deep sense of being capable regardless of the situation. These are just some of the fruits we can garner from the labor of self-observation.
Judgment does not play a role here. We aren’t searching to see if we handled this in a way that is “good” or “bad.” We are just taking a moment to see if something as random as a clock change can teach us anything about the way we show up in the world, and what we expect when we do.