Letting Go

I often run through life feeling as though I have a ton of bricks stacked upon my shoulders. Bricks of responsibility, of obligation, of high-expectations weighing down on me, clouding my vision, preventing me from feeling completely free to the opportunities of the world.

Each day it’s a battle: how much weight can I take on today?

It doesn’t have to be. I’m beginning to realize just how simple it is to let it go.

I have far-reaching goals, dreams that scare me. Don’t we all? They keep me up at night. Sometimes they are incredibly motivating and exhilarating yet in some moments they turn into these tiny voices telling me to do more, to be more, to work harder, to move faster. They whisper “you are not doing enough” even as I am pushing my capacity to function to extremes.

They refuse to allow me to take a step back, responding to my rare decision to slow down and take a breath with a wave of debilitating guilt.

But the more I do, the more I achieve, the more I realize that I cannot keep on toward success if I continue to beat myself down. The answer to every request, every opportunity, does not always have to be “yes.”

Oftentimes letting go means mastering the painfully difficult art of saying no.

With this comes anxiety, fear of missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime. But, what if one missed opportunity is actually the key to the door we have been searching for all along?

The truth is, we will never have all the answers. In fact, I’m not sure if there ever exists a clear answer to anything in life. So, then, what is the point of beating ourselves up over a life we can by no means predict or control?

Letting go of that obligation to carry the world on our shoulders… I will be the first to say that is much more easily said than done. I take pride in my yearning to “save the world”, to change it for the better.

But I am not alone. I am starting see that now. We are all here for a reason, and we are all here together. Perhaps me letting go of one piece of the world that is no longer serving me opens up that opportunity for someone who actually belongs there.

I guess through all of this, I’m trying to convince myself that it’s okay to not do everything. In fact, sometimes it’s even better if we can focus more attention on a few areas in which we know we can have an impact, instead of trying to spread ourselves as thinly as possible across all areas we can even just merely reach.