Letting Go

November 19th, 2019

Last week, I was feeling down.

One chilly afternoon I was listening to some of my friends speak from the heart, and one of them said something that somehow explained and helped me understand it.

He said, “Now when I get up in the morning, I just have to remind myself and accept that I’m going to have to let something go today.”

It made feel stupid how brilliant and simple and true that is.

At least once in your timeline from this morning through tonight, you will have to let something go.

It might be small. You might bump your elbow on a corner. Someone could cut you off in traffic. No one will be hurt, you’ll be irritated, for sure, but to get on with your day you’re going to have to let it go.

It might be huge. It could be a job you have to let go. Or an amazing opportunity. Or, sometimes, a person. And it might scratch and peel and kill at you, but in some way or another, you’re going to have to let it go.

And you could argue that’s not true.

And I would respond: “That’s because you’re not letting it go.”

By accepting, before it begins, that today will bring something we have to let go, it can make it easier when it arrives. And if not easier, the expectation of that decision at least prevents you from being blindsided by having to make a choice like this at all.

Letting go isn’t bad. Oftentimes, it’s actually good or even the best. But it’s almost always hard.

So I hope letting go becomes a part of who you are, and I hope it makes you appreciate the things you get to keep.

I’m still a little down — but knowing I can let that go, too, gives me hope. ❤