Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don’t much care where.
The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.
Alice: …So long as I get somewhere.
The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.
Although I’ve never read the whole book (never even attempted, tbh), this interaction from Alice in Wonderland demands thought and reflection.
I’ve spent the last many months assuming my life would improve if I simply “let go” and allowed things to naturally happen. I acted by not acting and I chose by not choosing.
And you know what happens when you do nothing? When you have no goals? When you simply exist from day to day?
Turns out you get the same place Alice wanted to go. Nowhere.
Carroll, through The Cheshire Cat, suggests you get somewhere. And I suppose that’s the case. But if you’re in a flowing stream and you stop going in a direction, the only place you end up is downstream. You follow the flow because there is no other force acting on you.
You’re not acting. You’re not trying. And so maybe you get somewhere. You go in reverse. And if you were aiming for progress and forward movement, you went worse than nowhere: you went backward.
So letting go and not acting can’t be the answer. Because you regress.