When All You Can Do Is Muddle Through
Four Lessons I'm learning while muddling through.
I’ve been muddling through life since the beginning of November. It was not a part of my plan for this winter. I had recipes to try for holiday feasts, ideas about things to write, and incorporating strength training into my fitness routine, among other things.
But, sometimes, I don’t get to choose, and the best I can do is to muddle through.
I realized earlier this week that while it’s not ideal, there has been unexpected growth and transformation as a result of surviving in and through a muddled- a “disordered and confusing”1 period of time.
I’m proud of how my family and I are muddling through this season of our lives. It’s not always pretty, it’s often difficult, and it’s been completely unexpected. The fact is, everything that needs to get done is getting done. It might not be pretty or easy, but everyone is eating, wearing clean clothing, and finding laughter and joy in the middle of it all.
There are four primary lessons I’ve learned from several months of muddling through. I hope this might invite you to lean into how your life might be asking or inviting you to muddle through too. The truth is most of us spend more time muddling through, doing the best we can, than floating through life with ease. Let’s celebrate the muddlers-it’s not a bad way to be!
Muddling through has exposed lots of false expectations. Measuring success by checking events, meetings, and plans off the list is easy. The expectation is the more I accomplish, the more successful I am. My muddling through season is revealing that less is more. Success is saying no to invitations to take a nap or prioritize taking a walk instead of doing one more thing. The world hasn’t fallen apart yet when I’ve said no. It’s a relief to let some false expectations go.
Muddling through time clarifies values. My time and energy have been limited by doctors’s appointments set on the doctor’s time frame and daily radiation appointments. It’s causing me to reflect and clarify what is important and to whom I want to give my time and energy. I’ve had to prioritize who and what is essential. I don’t always get it right, but each mistake of giving my limited time and energy to people or activities that don’t provide me with energy helps me see what’s most important. The truth is, these values are not just for this season; what I’m learning because I have to now I need to hold onto them when I’m no longer in this space.
Muddling through time is an invitation to humility. Not like the dictionary defines humility as “a feeling or attitude as you are nothing important.” But in the way Andrew Murray, a South African writer, and minister who lived from the 1800s to the early 1900s, defined humility,
“Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble.”
― Andrew Murray
The quietness of heart and wondering at nothing isn’t easy, but there is peace that comes with making peace with the way things are.
Muddling through is filled with grace. This season of muddling through time is one of grace. It’s accepting kindness from others and learning to extend grace to myself. Grace overflows and it’s hard not to try and stop the flow of grace with walls of judgment and fear. Grace is flowing, the only question is if I’ll let it.
This season of muddling through has helped me recognize what is true, which is that we are all just muddling through.
Maybe you are muddling through, and you didn’t even know it.
Maybe you’ve been judging yourself for muddling through, and it’s time to celebrate it rather than judge it.
Maybe you know someone who is muddling through, and you can let them know they are doing it.
Let’s celebrate the muddler-throughers!
A Blessing For Muddling Through
When your life is asking you to muddle through, as the best that you can do, may you consent to let it be.
When your best-laid plans and intentions just can’t be, may you find the grace in what can be.
When muddling through seems like all you can do, may you accept the invitations of help, support, and kindness that has been there all along.
When muddling through is the best you can do, accept the invitation and proudly, hopefully, muddle through.
“Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
This is how the dictionary defines muddle.
Thanks for giving us a great description of how life is and can be for so many of us these days.
Love this, from one muddler to another.