Letting go of attachments in order to get what you want in life is a concept touted by many a spiritual seeker. Life got you down? Just let it go. Simple enough, right?
Yeah, I can feel you rolling your eyes at me through your screen. “Just let it go? Attachments? You want me to stop caring about everything? As if it’s that easy.”
Oh no, my dear reader. Not at all. Letting go of attachments does not require that you stop caring about things. In fact, I find that it opens new pathways for passion. And, though the solution to what ails us may be simple, it is most certainly not easy.
What are attachments, and why are they a problem?
Personally, I like to take a page out of the Taoist playbook to explain this one. Imagine that you are floating down a river, its powerful current ever pulling you towards a vast ocean.
Now imagine that instead of floating down that river on your back, enjoying the sights and sounds, you’re flailing around, grabbing onto whatever you can to try to control the pull of the current. You’re slamming against rocks and tree roots, and practically ripping your arms out of their sockets trying to hold on to whatever you can grab. You’re tired, and feel like you can barely stay afloat. Sometimes you begin to slip beneath the water and drown. The current does not relent and your journey to the ocean continues.
In this analogy, the river is life, and its current is everything in life that you cannot control. That dickhead driver, a cancer diagnosis, the weather, your kids, other people’s kids, your past, your inevitable death, etcetera, etcetera…hopefully you get the point.
Many of us crave control over these things, and we try to gain control by excessively worrying, or having unreasonable expectations of other people. We ruminate on the way we think things should be rather than accepting what is. We desperately desire a certain outcome and we think we can never be happy without it. We develop an attachment.
The problem is when we do this, we’re missing out on what is happening right now. The past doesn’t exist. The future is uncertain. The only real thing is this moment, right here. When we spend our “right now” trying to control the uncontrollable, we don’t see the opportunities that are right in front of us.
How do we let go of attachments, then?
Stop trying to control everything. Focus on the only thing you can control. Your response to the uncontrollable current of life.
You can’t control the rain, but you can get an umbrella or look for shelter. Sometimes you can’t even find that, and I know how much that sucks from personal experience having slept in the rain more than once when I was homeless. In those situations, when the current is particularly turbulent, the best thing we can do for ourselves is to say, “Well this blows. But it won’t last forever.” And before you know it you’re truly enjoying the sunshine while your socks and everything else you own is drying beside you on the sidewalk.
Everyday Immortal 