Learning to let go

Human life is characterised by the freedom of choice. Free will enables us to make moral, ethical, personal choices about the direction a...

Human life is characterised by the freedom of choice. Free will enables us to make moral, ethical, personal choices about the direction and detours we will take in life. But there are large areas of experience and living where circumstances are beyond our control. We are often struck down by misfortune, illness and totally unforeseen circumstances, we are often faced with realities we find difficult to accept and adjust to.

We also do a lot of planning for the future. We all have our own set of dreams about how we would like to live in the present and future. Career choices, marriage choices, choices about where we live and work, how we recreate are all within our ambit of operation.

When it comes to circumstances that are beyond our control, human nature often rebels against what we see as an unfair or unjust set of circumstances imposed on us from the outside, that limit our free choice and certainly do not go along the way we had planned for ourselves. It is at times like this that we have to let goand let God. That is an attitude of mind that is not defeatist. At the same time, it keeps alive hope and gives us the strength to accept all that life offers us, with its limitations and drawbacks.

We may not accept our own physical and mental limitations. We may not accept the present reality, the situation that confronts us. At times like this we have to surrender ourselves and trust the providence of God and all that he has willed for our lives. Surrender may sound passive and defeatist.

Actually, it is an optimism based on reality that accepts the truth while keeping hope alive. Physical and mental illnesses may assail us. We may lose our jobs due to a financial downturn. A tragic accident may cripple us for life. Terminal illness may strike us in the first flush of youth. The question that often arises in such situations is Why Me? The question that the person who has surrendered to his circumstances asks is Why Not Me?

Letting go and letting God also means that we consult our own conscienceabout our course of action. That we listen to our inner spirit that guides us to choose right above wrong. That we become more amenable to reality and live less and less in a world of delusion. It also means that we give up our egoistical notions of self-grandeur and self-aggrandisement and accept the real self that we are. It means that we see ourselves as we truly are, with our imperfections and faults. We accept the shadow side of ourselves and embrace both the shadow and the positive side.

History is replete with instances of people who braved hardship, misfortune, disaster and loss without losing the spirit of life. They continued to hope and to fight, not to change their circumstances but to change their attitude to their circumstances. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, the cards of life are dealt out to us. It is for us to play with them as best as we can.

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Letting go and letting God is accepting our destiny, which we shape with our free choices, but also by our attitude to things that come our way.We cannot continue to hang on to our pride, arrogance and self-sufficiency in life. We have to see ourselves as dependent on others, and above all dependent on God for our lives, our totality, our human destiny.

The normal pattern of human life and the course of human history show that most often we do not let go. We distort ourselves, our world, our surroundings by trying to hammer them into a shape that fits our plans. Only when the bottom is knocked out of our world, do we submit to a higher destiny and calling and turn our attention inwards and not outwards. It is in the inner attitude of submission to life that we learn humility. Once we submit our lives and give everything we have and own into His hands, we learn to let go.