I’ve written about this before. Funny how some things don’t change no matter how much time has passed and how some things are applicable in multiple folders of our lives. I’m always the kind of person who thinks that identifying a problem or issue is half of the battle. Apparently, not with this one.

Letting go.

Living without trying to control the outcome of everything is not an approach I’ve ever truly attempted. Why? Because I feel I’ve controlled a great deal of my life in order to get where I am today. To be as happy as I am today, I’ve controlled the way I think, feel, approach situations, the way I look at everything. I think about every detail, what I could have done, should have done, did. Everything. Because it’s easier that way.

“Letting go is the hardest thing I ever did,” says a friend through a gchat conversation.

“I don’t even have a clue as to how,” I reply.

“There ya go. You’re trying to control how you let go of control.”

“Well fuck,” I say, and pause, and think. “When I write. When I write, I let go.”

‘Then live like you write,” he says.

“That’s terrifying.” And it is.

“So is the alternative.”

“Nah, it’s much safer to know I have someone to blame.”

I’m full of excuses and justifications for the way I’ve attempted to run my life – isn’t better to be a happiness-seeker than just let whatever happens happen? Isn’t doing everything in your power in order to garner the result you desire a better way of approaching life than sitting and watching it pass you by, shrugging it off?

“I’m not saying be an innocent bystander,” he says. “I do the footwork in my life, but I don’t force the outcome.”

Letting go is terrifying. You have to place trust in the process and sometimes the process is just plain scary. Feeling vulnerable is never strived for. The idea of reaching that level of uncomfort makes me cringe.

Letting go involves imagination and hope – both intangible. And I know the saying about the sand and the hand and you hold it too tightly and it slips through your fingers even faster, but how can you just believe that something will happen without doing everything in your power to make it so?

Letting go involves releasing over-responsibility and giving yourself permission to be free from the sense of obligation to correct, change or control. It involves admitting that you are not responsible to affect, change or correct a problem that is out of your competency, power or responsibility. If it’s not in my competency, I learn it. If it’s not in my power, go straight to the source. And if it’s not my responsibility, well, I make it.

Letting go involves saying “I can’t” and those two words are just not in my vocabulary.

And if they enter my vocabulary, don’t I lose my ambition? My drive to accomplish everything I’ve ever wanted?

I am most stressed and overwhelmed when I feel out of control – like there’s nothing I can do to change the outcome of a situation.

I’ve always been a believer that you create your realities, you control your destiny, each action you make today affects your tomorrow. Isn’t that equivalent to control? Or does it just need to stop – do I need to achieve something and just relish in it for a while instead of immediately attempting to take it to the next level, make it even better?

I’m not saying I need to control everything (although it’d be nice). I do surrender to circumstance and accept the fact that there are, actually, some things in life we just can’t control. Like love. And the weather.

But everything else? I like to get my hands on before I just stand by the wayside.

Title courtesy of Oprah Winfrey.