We’ve all heard it.
We’ve all used it.
Maybe we’ve practiced it.
Maybe we haven’t.
Maybe we’ve wished for it to be exercised by some and, maybe we’ve wished that we could exercise it more often than we attempt to.
Whatever the rationale, explanation, or reason is, at some point or another, the reliable, “just let go,” finds its way to us.
Whether used at us or by us, it unquestionably finds its way.
Which brings me to wonder...why do we need to be reminded to let go? Why is it so ridiculously hard to actually let go?
I mean, as humans, we are merely drunk on the perception of having control and trying our best to ensure that we do.
But…do we ever really, or have we ever?
Deep down, with the answer crystal-clear, why do we still seek that desirable concept of control? Why do we pine to steer a situation in the way that makes the most sense to us? Why are we so hell-bent on regulator-like domination? Why do we, as teeny-tiny specks in the entire cosmos, unwaveringly believe that we have the far-reaching power to maneuver whatever comes next and how it does? How are we so intrinsically confident of being the aptest ones to navigate the way? Moreover, where does this indomitable desire come from?
Which gets me to the question to follow, i.e., why does complete control (or whatever little that we think we have) feel so good? I mean, admit it…the pure idea of taking the reins of a situation to guide it entirely your way is simply delicious, is it not?
But is it really in your control?
More importantly, is it essential for it to be so?
Do you really need that level of charge?
Now don’t get me wrong. I am not challenging the idea of planning, lists or road mapping your route. Not at all. I am, after all, a dedicated list-maniac and a folder enthusiast, compartmentalizing and categorizing away to glory. So, before you jump the gun, to clarify, I am simply questioning the pure act of not being able to let go.
Of course, there are types of people who have been clever enough to always know that they have zero control and hence have always embraced the art of letting go. However, there is the other kind of stubborn, naïve lot, much like me, that genuinely struggle to let the chips fall in the direction that they are meant to. We believe that we need to plan, map, measure, and gauge where and how the chips will fall because if Plan A doesn’t work, Plan B will, and there’s always plans of the remainder alphabets to follow.
Oh yes, hours, days, weeks and sometimes months spent in deriving these charming plans, routes and maps because why would you want to leave it to the universe, or allow the greater powers to navigate the way? We spend years and years of our lives in different phases, at different points, playing a consistent tug of war to ensure that we are the ones that are responsible for where we’ve landed and pave our way in accordance to that.
But hold on…
What if we hadn’t?
What if we had just let those chips fall wherever they are meant to?
What if we didn’t constantly battle for control?
What if we had simply let go?
Would life have taken us in a different direction, or would we have been in the same place that we are in today?
While we are all caught up in our little bubbled frenzy of conquering complete control there are far greater affairs in motion which cannot and will not be affected irrespective of us finding or lacking that control.
From what I’ve understood in these short thirty-something years of being alive, most of the time, life isn’t about navigating your way to gain control; it is purely finding your way to that sweet spot of simply letting go and gliding into what life has in store for you.
Why?
Because no matter what you do, how you do it, when you do and wherever you do it, the universe has plans for you. It always did, and it always will so let go and allow those chips to merely fall because you will be where you’re meant to be, come what may.
With or without control.
Kapish?
With love from someone that recently experienced absolute liberation of releasing complete control and trusting the universe to do its magic,
Stories By Giggles