If it comes, let it come; If it goes, let it go

Have you ever noticed how much energy you put into chasing things/people that aren't meant for you or holding on to ideas that no longer serve you? Or maybe it's just me... 

Loyalty is a double-edged sword in my life. I am a deeply loyal person, which means I go all in on relationships and philosophies once they've proven themselves valuable to me. If you happen to be a friend of mine, lucky you! This means I will be here for you no matter what, and I will love you the best way I know how pretty much forever. But sometimes, I keep trying to hold on to people and ideas even when they are no longer sparking joy in my life but are instead only a source of frustration and hurt. Or when they have already let me go. I seem to have a knack for trying to make the person/idea serve the purpose it once served or be the way I imagine it to be rather than the way it actually is. Sometimes, I can be loyal beyond what is reasonable. And I can really marinate in the hurt that comes from an ending.

A couple of years ago, all my ideas about the concept of "forever" got shook, and I have been slowly learning to greet life with an open hand instead of a closed fist. I have realized that nothing is forever and that it's okay--healthy, even--to let things and people and ideas come and go from my life without trying to control how long they stay. Not every person or idea is meant for me, and the ones that are may only be meant for me temporarily. 

Think of it this way: have you ever had a butterfly land on your hand? It feels magical and surreal, like you've been chosen for something special. But the minute you close your hand around it and try to hang on to that magic for dear life, it starts to wither and die. Something beautiful and wonderful and amazing becomes something lifeless when it is held too tightly. You can and should appreciate the magic of that moment for as long as it lasts, but you should keep your hand open so the magic doesn't die, even if it means that particular magic is no longer meant for you. 

I am currently in the process of changing my mindset about loyalty and embracing this philosophy: If it comes, let it come; if it goes, let it go. These two things can be true at the same time: I can be loyal AND I can let go when it's time to let go. Letting go doesn't make me a bad person or a weak person, and it doesn't diminish my desire and ability to be loyal. I can appreciate the magic of the current moment without trying to suffocate it. I don't need to chase things that are meant for me. The magic that's meant for me will come when it's suppose to and stay as long as it needs to. I do not need to expend energy to chase it or to hold it tightly. That doesn't mean I will not be saddened by the letting go or that I will not mourn the loss of something that was once beautiful to me, but giving myself permission to let things come and go freely feels like the kind of freedom that leads to happiness. And I definitely need more of that in my life. 

How Do You Eat an Elephant?

There are a few pieces of wisdom I have gleaned over the years that I like to pull out and share with my kids from time to time, in part just to see if they are still capable of rolling their eyes all the way back in their heads. This is one of them: "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." Or the way I put it to my 5th grader, who was overwhelmed by his homework last night: "How many problems do you need to work on RIGHT NOW? Just one." 

All he could see was pages and pages of math problems with blanks out beside them for answers he didn't know off the top of his head, and it felt like too much, like something he would NEVER get through, and so he didn't want to even try. But he didn't need to do all the problems. He only needed to do one problem: the next problem. 

The reason this bit of wisdom is eye-roll worthy is because, in general, people don't want to be reminded that the hard thing they are facing is, in fact, doable, because then they will actually have to try. It's much easier to give in to the overwhelm, to say we can't, to believe the problem is simply too big. If we can convince ourselves that those things are true, then we can give ourselves permission not to do hard things, and it doesn't have to be our fault but simply just the magnitude of the problem. But that's a cop out.  

It makes perfect sense to my adult brain to tell a 10-year-old that he only needs to work on the very next math problem, and that if he does that over and over, he will soon be finished with the night's homework. Also, my adult brain looks at that 5th grade math, and thinks, "It's not even really that hard." That is NOT how my son looks at it, though, because the concepts are still new to him, and he doesn't have much experience yet with those kinds of problems, so they seem unreasonably difficult, like trying to eat an elephant. 

But give me adult problems, and suddenly I'm just exactly like a 5th grader who doesn't want to do any of the problems because all I can see is all the things I don't know. And while it may seem easy to tell someone else how to eat their elephant, it's harder to start taking bites of your own. I can't tell you how many times I've been paralyzed with the overwhelming feeling that I need to solve all the problems of my adult life right now but I don't know how. I look at all of them at once and don't have answers for most of them off the top of my head and feel I will therefore NEVER work my way through all of them--or maybe any of them--and I want to quit then and there. I have always found that I learn more when I teach others, and I'm thankful that coaching my 5th grader through his homework gave me the opportunity to be reminded how to eat an elephant. I don't need to solve all of life's problems right now. I just need to chew the bite that's in my mouth and then take the next one.  

Less Unhappy

As many of you know, I have declared 2022 my year of "happiness" and "joy." As you may also know, I began the year under a cloud of depression that made it difficult to even imagine those concepts, much less embrace them. Thankfully, I have managed to pull myself out of that pit and am in a place of true peace in my mind. 

There has never been a time when I believed happiness and joy would just fall into my lap or that it would be a once-and-done type of situation. I know they must be pursued and chosen every single day. Honestly, I still struggle to give myself permission to seek them--much less demand them--so long has been my habit of believing they weren't attitudes I was entitled to. But I know (though I forget and fall into old habits sometimes) that this is for sure what 2022 has for me and that I deserve every bit of it. Unfortunately, there is not always a clearcut path to happiness and joy, and I'm honestly not really sure if I would always know them if I saw them. So, it's interesting that, rather than just throw happiness and joy at me, this year is sort of backing into it by showing me things that don't make me happy and that don't create joy in my life. And I suddenly have a burning desire to eliminate those things from my life, even if they are things I have tolerated for months or years. 

Just this week, I have taken several steps in that direction. I have gotten rid of my chipped and stained dishes, which made me sad every time I looked at them, and replaced them with new dishes that feel like a pleasure to use. I discarded my cracked recycling bin and replaced it with a fully intact one. I threw out some dead houseplants that I was hoping against hope would have a second chance at life. And I ripped up my warped, eye sore (and foot sore every time I tripped on it) of a deck that was acting as a hideout for what I'm sure was one of the largest rat kingdoms of all time. 

I cannot proclaim to you that any of these acts necessarily made me happier, and in fact, they sort of seem like small, silly things to focus on in the grand scheme of the pursuit of happiness. But, here's the thing: they all made me less unhappy, which seems like a very good step in the right direction and one I will gladly take. Who knows, maybe the secret to a happy life is simply to become less unhappy in whatever circumstances you find yourself in, changing those things you can change and accepting the rest.