when not to let go (and balloons)

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hold on let go balloons

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“There are times in life when people must know when not to let go.

Balloons are designed to teach small children this.”

Terry Pratchett

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Well. I have written about how difficult it is for people, in business & Life, to let go of things so much I am not sure I can find any new words to share on that topic.

In fact if you google “reasons to not let go” you get nothing. Nada. You get jack shit on the topic.

All you get is page after page of reasons to let go.’

And, yet, there are certainly times to know when to not let go.

To be clear, a purposeful not let go is a different difficulty for us. While not letting go is something that is mostly based on some version of fear or doubt, knowing when to not let go of something seems to be more about our difficulty in discerning what is important, or good, and what is unimportant, or bad.

In fact. I think part of the ‘not letting go’ difficulty resides in how we learned to hold on in childhood <the balloon thing>.

We learn very early on that when you let go of something good it floats away never to be seen again. So we have learned to hold on a tightly as possible to goodbye handanything that could be construed as good <note: even if it is really a crappy balloon>.

We have become so good at it we are almost proud of not letting go. Therefore the problem isn’t our ability to actually hold on … it is choosing what to really not let go of.

Not letting go is a complex decision compounded by the fact we are complex people.

Why does the complexity matter? Because there is no formula. No ‘rules of not letting go.’

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Some things are obvious. The self stuff, the character stuff, the ‘who you are as a person’ stuff you don’t let go of. They are good balloons. But if you are not careful, after a while, you have so many balloons you can’t discern the good ones from the bad ones. Which leads me to suggest I sometimes believe the ‘what not to let go’ choice is an acquired intuition thing.

Yup. I just typed acquired and intuition side by side.

I like to remind people that you are not borne with good intuition. You may be borne with a good intuition muscle, but experience strengthens the muscle and it takes some time & experience to ‘acquire’ the intuition necessary to ‘not let go’ of the right things.

Regardless. I suggest intuition because unless one of the balloons has lost all its air and has sunk to the ground you are choosing amongst a shitload of balloons that maybe all look pretty good to you.

This may sound crazy because balloons float above you and should seem obvious at all times, but the connections to many of the balloons in your life are actually like links of a chain underwater.

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“The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of intuition.

Such intuitions give the appearance of miraculous flushes, or short-circuits of reasoning. In fact they may be likened to an immersed chain, of which only the beginning and the end are visible above the surface of consciousness.

The diver vanishes at one end of the chain and comes up at the other end, guided by invisible links.”

Arthur Koestler

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learning to fly handsYou see the balloons. Okay. You see some of them.

But the strings get all tangled up and you cannot tell which string to let go of <because you are not sure which balloon will go away> and which one to hold on to. Some of the choices you make as you look at the strings are intuitive. And given some time and experience I imagine the string feels a little different in your hand as you pluck it out from all the others. That is this version of intuition.

So. One of the things I admire most in people is consistent great intuition and how they manage what to not let go of.

It is an interesting characteristic to assess when you meet people and is fairly easy because you can just look up and see the balloons they carry with them.

So, in the end, maybe the balloon metaphor is bad, or maybe I simply overused it, but suffice it to say that while there is a lot of free advice on ‘letting go’, there isn’t a whole shitload of advice on ‘what to not let go of.’

I think it is obvious that there are certainly some ‘be yourself’ characteristics that you should never let go of <although figuring out what to not let go of as you try and improve yourself is not easy either>.
What is less obvious is the other stuff in your life. Experiences, knowledge, even people.

birds on handI don’t have any answers today. Just questions. And maybe some prompting that this is something we should think about a little more.

Most letting go advice online is vapid and a waste of time <albeit with good intent>.

I don’t have any advice for ‘not let go’ other than think about it. We all learn to hold on to balloons because they represent freedom and hope and good things waiting above us. Paradoxically, despite the fact it may appear like they should be let free so we can benefit from them, it is actually those that should be the things we hold on to and not let go of. Ponder.

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Written by Bruce