Epiphany

There's a simple solution to my complex problems. Just let go.

For a while now, I've been dissecting my misfortunes, placing them under a microscope and picking at them with dissecting needles, teasing them apart, trying to figure out where I went wrong, what I did wrong, how I could possibly have avoided the situation I am in, and on and on. No I'm not a masochist. But my analytical little head needs a reason. The fact that shit happens is just not a good enough answer for it. The voices in my head demand to know why the shit happened in the first place. It's what years of being a scientist does to you.

So I tried assigning blame. Just so that I would have a reason. Just to make the voices in my head shut up. I blamed myself. I blamed people I love. I blamed random strangers that had nothing to do with my problems in the first place. I blamed God. And the universe in general for conspiring against me and making me so miserable. And the voices in my head finally shut up. Because I'd given them the good, solid, analytical reasons they needed. But I was still miserable and unhappy inside.

So I figured miserable and unhappy was the way things were meant to be. And I moped in it. I whined. I grumbled. And I blogged about it. And when things went from bad to worse, I allowed for them to be. Because that was how things were meant to be. I played the destiny card. Things were the way they were because that's how they were meant to be. Unhappy is how I was meant to be. I was going through a bad phase, I reasoned. And that gave me permission to be miserable, mopey and grumpy.

So mopey, grumpy and I went to the park with the dogs yesterday. And I was playing tug-on-a-rope with Charlie, my german shepherd, when the great big epiphany hit me. Okay, so bear with me here. I know it's not like I discovered a new law in physics, but still when it hit me, it seemed pretty huge. And for all you so-wise-and-philosophical ones, if you've known this all along, play along with me here, this is MY moment under the sun.

It suddenly struck me how this tug-on-a-rope game that I was playing with Charlie was so similar to what life and me had been playing all along. I pull in one direction, and life pulls harder in the opposite direction. I want it to go one way. It wants me to go completely in the opposite direction. We both hold our ground and pull the rope, struggling with all our might. In the end going nowhere. I get frustrated and angry and tug harder on the rope, and then suddenly it dawns on me. That all I have to do to make this sick, frustrating game end is to let go.

Perhaps the reason it took so long for this epiphany to dawn on me is the fact that I am such a control freak. Letting go simply wasnt an option I had considered. Because letting go meant letting someone else or something else take charge. And that scares the daylights out of me. I mean, I cant even trust someone else to drop the mail in the post office for me, because they wont do it right, and I'm talking letting go. This is huge.

But I'm finally ready to do it. I'm ready to stop being such a control freak and just let go and let things be the way they are. Sure, it'll drive me crazy when things dont go my way. But I'm not going to tug and pull and fret over them anymore. I'm going to go with the flow. And not struggle so much to make things go my way. Who knows, perhaps I'll even like the new direction that life pulls me in. And if I dont, it's not the end of the world. I'll just pick myself up and walk away. Life and I arent going to tug-on-a-rope anymore. Because I simply let go. And I'm ready to move on.

So here's to letting go. Letting go of situations I cant avoid, people I cant change, things that are clearly beyond my control. I refuse to let them bother me. And turns out, shit happens is now a good enough answer for me.


~vagabond~ © 2008