Allow Life to Flow at Its Own Pace

Last Updated on April 24, 2025 by The Unbounded Thinker

Life has its own pace. Wishing it to hurry in your favor will only cause disappointment and frustration. No matter how hard you work, how deep you pray, or how many affirmations you say, life will always flow at its own pace.

It’s easy to get caught up in the rush to achieve more, do more, and get ahead faster. We often find ourselves trying to rush the flow of life and we expect success, happiness, or generally, positive change to come quickly. We expect life to work as a machine that quickly responds to our commands and needs.

But life is not a machine. Life is like a river. It flows at its own pace. And just like you can’t force a river to flow faster, you can’t rush life. Any attempt to do so only creates inner tension that leaves you depressed, demotivated, and frustrated.

Trying to rush the current of life leads to pain. I experienced this myself when I rushed to expand my chicken flock.

I bought several chickens, expecting to expand my flock faster. Little did I know that these chickens were sick. They infected the rest of the flock, and I almost lost all my chickens. What I thought was a step forward turned into a painful lesson in patience.

Later, I made a similar mistake with sheep. Eager to expand my flock, I bought two sheep without proper evaluation. Weeks later, they died. Once again, rushing backfired.

From these experiences, I learned to allow life to flow at its own pace. They were painful lessons, but they opened my eyes to a deeper truth that nature has been teaching me all along. I began to pay more attention to the natural world, and I saw clearly how everything in nature grows with patience, not pressure.

You can’t force a plant to grow faster by overwatering it or dumping excess fertilizer into the soil. You cannot force it to grow faster than it’s meant to. You can water it, nourish the soil, and ensure it gets enough sunlight, but beyond that, the pace of its growth is not in your hands. Your effort may make it healthier, more vibrant, and more resilient, but it will not change the natural pace at which it unfolds.

All our striving, our rushing, our desperate attempts to make things happen now are like trying to force a plant to grow faster. We pour our energy into pushing, forcing, and demanding instant results, believing that the more we do, the sooner we’ll find success or fulfilment. But in doing so, we only create inner turmoil, because we’re moving out of tune with the natural flow of life.

I have learned that life becomes much easier and more peaceful if I let it flow at its own pace by overcoming the desire to speed things up. I now only do my best and accept any outcome. If things don’t come as fast as I expect, I have learned to accept the way things are.

In this state, something strange but divine happens. When I just enjoy my work and not stress about the results, the things I want always come.

For instance, when I gave up on trying to expand my flock of sheep and chickens and I just enjoyed taking care of them, that’s when their numbers started increasing.

It has now dawned on me that the ancient Chinese concept of Wu Wei is the best approach to life. It discourages trying to force outcomes and encourages us to do what needs to be done and let go. Wu Wei means embracing action that flows from inner stillness and awareness, rather than from ambition, fear, or control. A stillness that is founded on the understanding that life has its own flow, its own rhythm, its own divine intelligence that we cannot fully understand,

For a long time, I lived with the pressure to make things happen faster, to achieve more, and to acquire more. But I’ve come to see that this pressure is a form of resistance that turns life into something to conquer rather than something to harmonize with. A resistance that makes life appear uncooperative, unfair, and difficult.  

Now, I simply show up, do my part with full attention, and let go. I’ve stopped expecting life to bend to my timeline. If something doesn’t happen as quickly as I hoped, I no longer allow myself to become frustrated. Instead, I accept and respect the flow of life, knowing that growth will come when it’s time. And strangely enough, things have started falling into place.

Interestingly, although I had stopped praying for a while, this approach to life rekindled my desire to pray. For a long time, I stopped praying because I felt that my prayers were ineffective. But now, I find myself praying again. Not to ask for things to happen faster or for life to go my way, but to ask for the ability to let go. I pray for the strength to detach from specific outcomes, the patience to wait without frustration, and the ability to accept life as it is.

This, to me, is true power. Finding peace not when everything goes my way, but when I allow life to go its way, and still remain at peace. I now live in the river’s rhythm, no longer pushing against the current, but flowing with it, trusting that it will take me where I’m meant to go.

Because life is not a race to be won. It is a song to be danced to, a breeze to be felt, a conversation to be fully present in.

Shalom.