Bernard was drawing with charcoal on a piece of driftwood when his mother returned home…He was busy at nothing, his energy humming, ready for a focus.                                                                   – Michael Dorris, Working Men

Michael Dorris was an American writer. The son of a man who killed himself, Dorris took his own life in 1997 at the age of 52.

This quote struck me today because we have spent an awful lot of time recently talking about making our time serve us, about how we all were issued specific talents at birth and how the most useful lives are spent by those who get the most out of those talents. All true.

He was busy at nothing, his energy humming, ready for a focus.

Still though, sometimes we have to do the equivalent of drawing on driftwood with a piece of charcoal for a while. It’s not always easy. There are usually a hundred and one things to distract us from the necessary pursuit of relaxing. But from time to time we must be as vigorous in our pursuit of being busy at nothing as we are as vigorous in our pursuit of making our time serve us.

That’s why you are reading this today. As a writer and candidate for the Colorado Libertarian Party’s US Senate nomination, there are no shortage of things to do. But except for writing this I am not going to do them until later today. Later, the brain will start humming and looking for something to do, but that is a lookout for later.

Doing the equivalent of drawing with charcoal on a piece of driftwood is something we all need to do from time to time. There is no need to feel guilty about it. The rest will do us good in our pursuit of making our time serve us.

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Whether it is the time or the method, true labor is half initiative and half knowing how to let things proceed on their own. – Deng Ming Dao, 365 Tao

Life is funny. We talk regularly here about utilizing our talents and making our time serve us and how we only have a limited amount of time on this planet to make something good happen for ourselves. Nothing we want is going to come to us; we must go out and get it. Half initiative.

Yet there are there time when it is beneficial to sit back, relinquish control and let matters take their own course. Because sometimes, in spite of our best efforts, matters are going to take their own course anyway. We might as well allow it to happen. Fighting the always so only leads to frustration and discontent. Half letting things proceed on their own.

The key is to recognize when it is time to assert ourselves and when it is time to let go and the key to this is recognizing what we can control and what we can’t. All we can really control is what is inside us. Sure, we must show some initiative in this life. It’s how things get done. We must also realize when we have no control over a situation and when the time has come to let things proceed on their own. This is also how things get done. It’s the way world is built.

…half initiative and half knowing how to let things proceed on their own.

Really, the only thing we can control is us. Of course, we need to show initiative in our lives. We cannot make our time serve us sitting on the couch. Equally important, we must allow the natural order to take its course and let happen what is going to happen anyway. We must know when to proceed and when it is best to stand on the bank and let the river run its course. Doing both allows us to reap the profits and benefits from each situation.

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I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. – Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau wrote this about the two year period he spent living in a cabin near Walden Pond in Massachusetts. Thoreau was brilliant at reducing life to its most basic components. His stay at Walden Pond, which was the foundation of his seminal work Walden, showed that brilliantly. It was brilliant not so much because he spent it communing with nature per se, but because Thoreau was completely in his element for those two years, doing exactly with his life what he should have been doing.

We should all be doing with our lives what we should be doing. We can’t all go live in a cabin by a lake, but we can all follow our hearts and trust our instincts. We can all make our time serve us.

…to front only the essential facts of life…

I don’t really think there are that many essential facts. My favorite is we only have a finite amount of time on this planet. Not only that, we don’t know how long that time is or, unless you’re going to be executed, when that time is going to end.

Another is that we are all issued talents and ambitions at birth. The most useful lives are spent by those who utilize and get the most out of these talents. Squandering the gifts we were born with does not do us or our fellow humans any good.

…and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

All of must prepare for the time when we will be obliged to look back and examine our lives. When our time comes to do this we must be able to say that we did well and that we did not squander our precious time on this planet.

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If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. – Emerson

Our instincts are one of the most valuable resources nature gave us. We see this in nature all the time, too, from your family dog to animals trusting their instincts for survival.

Many people, however, ignore or do not trust their instincts. I think this is because our instincts, what is coming from our heart and deep down in our gut, usually wants to take us someplace we’ve never been and the never been can seem scary at first.

We are not going to accomplish anything of substance in our lives staying where we’ve always been, though. There’s no way. The only way anyone makes any progress in anything whatsoever is becoming someone he’s never been and going someplace he’s never gone.

If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts…

Everyone who has had any success in life has been in the position of having to trust their instincts and take the first step on an unknown road. So has everyone who has not been a success. The difference is successful people, regardless of the road they embarked on, had the courage to take that first step into the unknown.

After you’ve followed your instincts into the unknown often enough it becomes second nature and you don’t think twice about it, one of life’s great prizes. But the first time can be tough for anyone. To deny that is folly. It’s like birds at the edge of a bird cage: they can see the unknown but when they look back their food and water right there for them. On the one hand, the bird wants to fly away. On the other hand, there’s security in the cage.

We are not going to accomplish anything of substance in our lives if we stay in the cage. If we are listening to our instincts, they are telling us exactly that: that us humans must fly.

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