Never Let Go

A good friend sent me an article about letting go. Letting go sounds liberating but dangerous, which is not how I’m accustomed to living. I’m as much in love with my future as I am with today, if not more. I like working, learning, growing, building and progressing. I like the feeling of strength and optimism that I have when I’m being productive. I like who I am when I’m focused. There may be some merit in letting go of inappropriate pursuit – one that no longer benefits your world. But this letting go seems presented on a different scale. This suggestion is to get over it, move on, kick back, relax and enjoy the show. This suggestion is to care less, to take things less seriously, to invest less time and energy in myself and my world.

I refuse.

Does progress happen by accident?

Growth happens by accident. But progress is a larger beast. There is nothing quite as powerful as the concerted effort of the human mind or collection. This world is moved by force, man-made force in the case of breaking a sweat or splitting atoms.

What have you if you let go?

Many things have been learned, realized and found by letting. But nothing great was ever built by letting go. In letting go we create space and opportunity. But is there any reason to do this without being cautious and calculated? If you’re being cautious and calculated are you actually letting go or are you building?

When do you enjoy life?

I think the idea of letting go ties in with a discussion I had recently about how often I force myself to do things. I do things now so I can enjoy the passive benefits tomorrow. I am building myself. A common rebuttal is whether I ever actually let myself reap those benefits, perpetually building, never reflecting. My answer is two part – yes and yes. First, I enjoy the process of making progress – it’s a reward in and of itself. Second, we all take time to breath – as much of a monster as I like to think I am, I deviate, procrastinate and find myself in my fair share of unscrupulous situations.

Do you care about you?

Be thankful for yourself. You should take care of yourself and improve yourself. You are building you future by investing time and energy in your growth. Learn and grow to the best of your ability.

What’s the point?

There is no option. Life is a journey of growth, of connecting dots, of holding on tight and taking the plunge. Ultimately, if none of this matters, if I don’t matter, then having spent my time building is inconsequential. If it does matter, then my world and I will be better for it.

Never let go.

Posted

February 18, 2012

love, philosophy

Geoffrey Hale

Comments

3 responses to “Never Let Go”

Cameron

July 10, 2010

Well, I think the answer is anything but sophomoric: there has to be a balance! We wish we could align our compasses towards a clean horizon, but we are messy creatures, and there will always be compromise between attachment and letting go. I'm intrigued by the Buddhist approach but as you observe it seems unlikely to produce positive change.

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Nadia

July 10, 2010

Here are of few of my thoughts, in response to those above, in no particular order…
** Change is the ONLY constant in this life. You may be building or working on something one day, and then something/one comes along and changes it. What's most interesting is when that "something/one" is you!
** A truly sophmoric contribution here is that it's really the journey rather than the destination that is most important in life's pursuits! So even if you build and decide to let go, it's because you've learned something along the way, or maybe opened yourself to something even better… and there's no regret in the initial building there.
** It's funny that Buddhism is mentioned above. I'm reading "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching" by the the very amazing Thich Nhat Hanh… I respectfully, yet strongly disagree, and feel that the balance (rather than compromise) of attachment and letting go, in addition to dwelling happily/focusing on what is good, is precisely the recipe for positive change and a healthy life.

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GeoffreyHale

July 10, 2010

I agree, letting go is unlikely to produce positive change, but more specifically, positive change of a quantifiable nature. Perhaps relinquishing the very consideration of positive/negative would be more infinitely good than anything positive or negative, but how could we know? Perhaps relinquishing pursuit of our goals would be more infinitely good than anything positive or negative, but in doing so we'd be drastically diminishing the likelihood of them ever being achieved if we ever were to return having learned we were right all along.

Let our building be the path we walk which is symbolic of the life's inevitable constant: change. Though distance traveled may not be the appropriate metric, how far does one get if they let go of their attachment to the path they've been travelling? Eventually it's important to identify this metric if not distance traveled, but for now without identification the metaphor may continue to suffice. The answer is, they do not get as far as if they stayed their course. For a perfectionist, a score keeper, a man of numbers, the impossible task is to find reason in relinquishing the counting of steps and miles to instead count the unquantifiable randomness that surely comes with letting go. Perhaps the change from stead-fast to free-living takes a mere moment of recklessness, but the more the logical man considers that transition the less likely I feel he is to be able to make that jump.

Back to that metric, the point of life. Is it the steps taken and miles traveled, or is the flowers we stopped to smell? One might suggest balance, but that may be unacceptable for the perfectionist. Is it the flower? Then why am I walking? Is it the walk? Then why is my nose in this flower?

Perhaps there's a non-linear nature of utility that my intuition is unable to marry.

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