berlin fashion week is in two weeks. yesterday, after days of searching instagram for model casting calls, i finally sighed and gave up. i couldn't find a single one. i resigned myself to never modeling again if this was how things were going to go.
today i received an instagram dm from a designer i've previously worked with—she asked if i was interested in walking in her upcoming fashion show.
for some reason, outcomes seem to improve when i cease all effort entirely. at times in my life, i have completely given up trying to affect the outcome of anything at all. if anything was going to happen, then it would have to be purely through divine providence. i refused to lift a finger.
perhaps that sounds like a poor strategy for getting what you want. the key to its success, however, was that i didn't exert any anti-effort—i didn't work against or reject any positive opportunities that did present themselves. in fact, i'd eagerly accept them! anything exerted beyond that, however, seemed to be utterly in vain.
on the surface, this seemed to work. until i looked around one day and found myself despondent on a messy couch, cocooned day after day in my depressing apartment working a job that drained me. i was still just as open to opportunity as ever, but my effort muscles had utterly atrophied.
the failure of my effort-aversive strategy had only just began to sink in when i met my now-boyfriend, who seemed to exert effort as easily as a gentleman opens a door for a lady—without a hint of hesitation.
that was the nail in the coffin. i decided i needed to rebuild my effort-exerting abilities from scratch.
that was over a year ago now, and though i still find myself grappling with the balance of effort versus surrender, i am satisfied with the rehabilitation work i've accomplished. it now feels like a choice i can make, rather than surrender being my one and only option.
i don't know that i'll ever totally resolve the tension between the pushing and pulling of my fate. for now, i've settled on putting in whatever effort i feel up for, then surrendering control of the outcome, letting the divine plan decide what fruits my effort produces. lucky for me, i like most fruits.
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