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“Teach me how to gracefully let go of things not meant for me.”

via lilac-veinss 

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There are moments in the life of a man, and of a nation, when it is right to say:

I have done my utmost, and I can do no more, therefore I will cease my striving and seek another road.”

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“People will try to hold on when their world starts to tilt. They will grab onto whatever is in reach.” 

Claire Zorn

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freedom feels like holdOk. Letting go of shit may be one of the hardest things to do in the world.

Even more difficult? Letting go gracefully.

What I mean by that is .. these are the moments in which you have decided you have done what you have done, done what you consider enough and you are, well, done.

These are the moments in which you actually consciously think:

How do I let go?

Where do I begin?

Do I let go memory by memory?

How many goodbyes will this take?

Do I leave words with everyone until I have no more words left to give?

Oh. And if I do all this, will it even matter?

In addition. You are tempted by these two whispers in your head:

Maybe I should do nothing.

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Maybe I should just stand here and let others let me <or ‘it’> go.

Suffice it to say letting go, in general, let alone gracefully … is hard. Really hard.

And while we typically suck at letting the right things go, let alone anything I imagine, we REALLY suck at letting things go gracefully.

I feel fairly confident in saying most people don’t let go gracefully let alone let go at all.

You just get stuck.

You just hold on tight and then when you do let go you just want to throw it away and ignore it as if you never held it.

And maybe you get a little confused.

Well. There is no handbook for “how to let things go gracefully.” It does not exist and so you must try to find ways to figure it out on your own.

gracefully Yep time let goFrankly, it seems almost cruel that a handbook on “letting go” doesn’t exist <let alone gracefully> because it may be one of the most common things we do in Life.

Huh? What do I mean by that?

We don’t seem to notice the almost daily experience as we let go, every single day, countless amounts of things:

Moments.

Minutes.

Objects.

People.

Well. We may not notice these countless seemingly meaningless ‘letting gos’ until

a.we realize how much has been let go, or

b. we are faced with a situation that we want to hold on or that we are the ones being let go.

What both of those things have in common is a moment where we realize we are the ropes in a tug-of-war. Someone holding on at each end until one decides to let go.

You realize Time is watching you leave or maybe you end up watching Time leave.

Someone watches you leave or maybe you end up watching someone else leave.

Regardless. We have lots of personal experience letting shit go. Most times things are let go little by little andd in these small, but significant, changes we don’t really learn the ‘gracefully’ part … just the letting go part.

Oh.

Not only do we let most things go in small insignificant increments often you have no control. They just go. Things get lost. Time, people, experiences, things … they just let you go regardless of whether you ask them to or not.

Anyway. I have said it before, but part of growing up is leaving shit – regrets, stuff, people, choices, etc. – behind.

But you really know when you have grown up when you have also learned the graceful part. For all things. You’ve learned to let things go gracefully that you not only made the ‘let go decision’, but also the things that were ‘let go’ by someone else.

In other words learning to let things go even when your world starts to tilt.

Maybe that is what makes this whole letting go gracefully so hard. Holding on is a shitload easier than letting go. And, in fact, I am not sure there is such a thing as ‘holding on gracefully.’ You are just, well, holding on.

Sigh.

Let’s end with this thought.

Unfortunately I tend to believe you encounter more things not meant for you than those things actually meant for you in Life. People, moments, experiences, decision crossroads, whatever. I just think we encounter more than what is really meant for us. Yet. None of these things wear little name tags that say “meant for you” or “not meant for you.”

That means, unfortunately, while we may eventually get better as we get older with regard to sifting through all these things inevitably you will end up with a lot of shit that … well … aren’t really meant for you. And even more unfortunately there really isn’t anyone to help you sift thru and, well, no one is going to … ‘teach me how to gracefully let go of things not meant for me.’

That is something you just gotta figure out on your own and hope you are more graceful on the important things.

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Written by Bruce