Between Surrender And Giving Up

So in my previous article, I discussed the illusion of control, which turned out to be prophetic considering all that has happened after I wrote that article. For those who were not aware, I had a heart attack after a basketball game on Tuesday (18 February, 2020). Since then, I had three stents inserted in two of my coronary arteries and have since been discharged from hospital.

I had plans to travel on the day of my second angioplasty operation, but the heart attack put paid to those plans. So what does this episode have to do with the theme of this article,  ‘surrender or giving up’? It actually has everything to do with it.

During my attack, I had only one overwhelming thought throughout: and it was to stay conscious and not pass out. As my daughter was with me, I did not want her to panic if I passed out and I also figured that if I could stay conscious, I would  have some level of control over my breathing and my body, which will make it easier when the medical first-responders arrive.

In such a situation, it is easy to (sometimes inevitably so) lose consciousness. I was not sure how serious the heart attack was at that time, but I was blessed and somehow managed to slow my breathing and did whatever I could to remain awake.

During the attack, my thought naturally involved death and the question “will I die”? My own answer in that time was that I had no control over that. All I could do was to do my best to stay conscious and get through the episode. That is what it means to surrender: to do whatever you can, but let go of the outcome.

On the other hand, at no time did I ‘give up’ fighting to stay awake, and by extension, stay alive. I felt that as long as I could stay awake, my chances of survival would be greater and also reduce the impact of any damage from the attack.

Therein lies the difference between surrender and giving up. When we surrender, we do whatever we can to achieve our goal, but there is an acceptance that we are not in full control of the outcome. When we give up, we basically lose hope and stop any effort to reach the goal itself.

 Surrender is acceptance 

Allow me give you another example. I am currently on three different types of long-term medication (maybe more later on), two of which the doctors have said will be taken for life. Now, I am not one to like taking medication as I generally spurn synthetic medication for alternative (and natural) remedies. However, given my current situation, I have no better option than to take the prescribed medication for my long-term health.

As such, I am surrendered to (i.e. accepted) the fact that I will likely be on those life-long medication. That said, it does not mean that I have given up the possibility of one day bringing down the dosage to a minimal level through lifestyle or diet changes along with my doctors’ guidance.

There is also a common misconception, sometimes through many of today’s new-age spiritual teachings, that we should surrender everything without doing anything. In my experience, we do have to surrender to God, the Divine or whatever we prescribe or believe in as a higher power. However, what we are actually surrendering is the outcome of our actions; we do not surrender our efforts. Most spiritual scriptures, among them the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, the Buddhist Scriptures and the Tao Te Ching, devote a big portion of their teachings to surrendering to God and/or to the way things are. However, none of them mentioned that our efforts are not needed.

In summary, surrender means to accept what is, which includes that our efforts may never be rewarded. However, this does not mean we give up our efforts to achieve our goals whatever the obstacles. Most of us have been trained to expect that our efforts will be rewarded. Unfortunately, our efforts does not always equal to rewards. Similarly, many of our plans do not always turn out exactly the way we envisioned them to.

Unrewarded efforts and frustrated plans are two of most recurrent situations that cause us to suffer. Through the practice of surrendering the outcome, while not giving up our efforts, we can have a more peaceful and graceful approach to living – one with less suffering with our unfulfilled desires and attachments.