Life Is Always Right

Years ago, I knew a doctor who complained constantly about his wife and kids.

“I know what’s best for them,” he said. “But they don’t listen.”

I said, “You’re a man of science. When an experiment doesn’t give you the results you expected, what do you do?”

“I revise my hypothesis,” he replied.

“Then maybe,” I said, “it’s time to revise the hypothesis that your approach with them is working.”

Most people don’t want feedback from reality. They want confirmation from reality. But life does tell us the truth all day long through cause and effect.

When we doomscroll, our jaws clench and our minds grow hopeless. When we obsess over old resentments, our breath tightens and our body contracts. Then we say, “Why do I feel this way? I shouldn’t feel this way.”

But as Ajaan Chah used to say: “If it should have happened, it would have happened.”

Or as Rilke put it: life is always right. Not that life is always fair — that’s a different idea. But life is always giving us information that we ignore because we’re attached to how things should be.

We think, “I should make more money,” instead of learning how finances work. We think, “My partner should treat me better,” instead of taking responsibility for the relationships we choose and co-create. The Buddha’s word for this responsibility is “dharma,” which simply means “the way things are,” or better, “the way things work.”

Meditation shows this clearly. When you sit down and focus on your breath, you’re only ever seeing a mirror of your life. Sometimes the breath feels tight or strained. The mind wants to argue: “This isn’t working.” “I shouldn’t feel this way.”

But when you accept that the breath is right, curiosity begins to replace resistance: Maybe you don’t need to grip the out-breath. Maybe you don’t need to pull on the in-breath. Maybe there’s more freedom here — at the tip of your nose and throughout your whole life — than you realized.

So notice where you’re gripping. Do what you can to let go. The friction you feel isn’t punishment. It’s just life tugging at your sleeve, trying to get your attention.