My Royal Nemesis

I’m watching this show right now, My Royal Nemesis. Wow, what a beginning

There’s this scene, a concubine gets accused, guilty, sentenced to death, right there in front of everybody. And while the vizier is reading off her crimes, she’s sitting there painting. A cherry blossom tree. Calm. Focused. Like none of it is even landing on her.

Her handmaiden leans in and says, shall we go, meaning it’s time, meaning they’re coming to take her to die. And she just says, I’m in no rush, I’m not done with my painting yet. Finishes the last blossom, sets the brush down, stands up, and walks to face her execution like she’s walking to get a cup of coffee.

I’m sitting here thinking about that right now.

Because that’s not how any of us live. We can’t sit at a red light without checking our phone. We can’t eat a meal without our mind running six different places. This woman is facing death itself and she’s more present than most men are on the best day of their life.

And I’m asking myself, what would it look like if I moved through my whole life like that. Not unbothered because I don’t care. Unbothered because I already made peace with what I can’t control. Present with my wife because that’s the moment I’m in. Present with my kids. Present behind the wheel of this truck. Present in my prayer instead of my mind being three cities down the road.

This is the thing I keep coming back to, the Seedling Principle. You plant it, you tend to it, you give it everything you’ve got, and then you let go of what happens after. That woman finished her painting because the painting was hers to finish. Her death wasn’t hers to control. She didn’t waste her last minutes fighting the part she had no say over. She just gave everything to the part that was still in her hands.