Writing about faith helped me realize how faith helps in letting go. I define letting go as freeing myself from worry and detaching my happiness from outcomes. An example of focusing on the source of concern would be ruminating on how much I procrastinated. An example of being overly attached to results would be obsessively checking to see when grades are entered. Why did I give these concepts significant attention when I knew they caused suffering? It is because I previously believed holding on signified strength and letting go represented weakness, which changed when I watched this video by Jay Shetty.
Knowing the harmful effects of holding on, why do we consistently avoid letting go? Virgina Satir once said, “People prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty.” While we may be dissatisfied with what we currently have, we still fear the uncertainty of letting go because we cannot predict the future (cannot connect the dots looking forward). We hold on because we desire certainty, which makes us feel safe.
Not Letting Go Hurts
Excessively holding on to concern is like a quarterback unnecessarily holding onto a football to avoid impending unpredictability. The quarterback unreasonably protecting the ball causes him to get sacked often and getting sacked hurts. Regardless of the quality of the offensive line or the strategy of the defense, the length of time spent holding the ball is the most significant determinant of getting sacked.
After finally letting go of the ball by throwing it, the quarterback obsessively compares the ball’s trajectory to the idea of a “perfect throw” in his mind. Believing everything is supposed to be a certain way, the quarterback pressures himself to assure everything works out as he imagined. This constant monitoring of outcomes cause stress to accumulate and takes the quarterback out of the flow of the game.
Why Do We Hold On?
There are two reasons the quarterback holds onto the ball. The first is that holding on maintains the certainty we all desire. Wanting this assurance, we hang on to meaningless things like people’s comments, which are usually innocuous, but we ruminate on these remarks enough to find an issue. We prefer to focus on trivial matters guaranteeing our misery instead of how letting go make us happier and facing the pain of uncertainty that comes with focusing on our goals.
Letting go and crossing into doubt opens our minds to the possibilities of failure and worst-case scenarios, which we are wired to fear no matter how unlikely. Having a little faith helps us better handle ambiguity and understand how to let go of resentment, fear, guilt, etc. to take action towards essential affairs like applying for a new job or engaging in a new hobby, which have uncertainty.
Similar to the quarterback compulsively monitoring a ball’s trajectory after throwing it, we obsessively track our progress after taking action. The ball is released, and he has no more control over it so why does he still think about it? There are multiple times we will build up the 20 seconds of courage like finally applying to a job, approaching a damaged relationship or creating a blog (shameless self-promotion), and fixate on how close we are to the desired destination. Even after letting go of what’s causing us pain and taking action we attach our happiness and ego to the outcome we want, which inevitably creates more stress.
Letting Go of Results
Dr. Raj Raghunathan defines compulsively holding onto an outcome as “The Obsessive Pursuit of Passion.” The obsessive pursuit of passion is having a strong preference for outcomes before and after the outcome has occurred. This concept is like us applying to a dream job and then becoming depressed when we are denied by thinking: “I’m not good enough, I should have done this differently, and I wish I were smarter.” The obsessive pursuit of passion is tying our happiness and self-esteem (ego) to outcomes.
A better method is the “Dispassionate Pursuit of Passion,” which is having a preference for an outcome before it occurs and being accepting of the consequence after it has happened. This concept would be like us applying to a dream job and being independent of the result because we realize life goes on and are not overly attached to a particular outcome.
There is a difference between having goals and taking appropriate action towards them and obsessing over goals and becoming stressed/worried about accomplishing them. Thinking with the dispassionate pursuit of passion and having faith allows us to pursue our goals with a calm confidence because we still have expectations and preferences; however, we do not need to obsessively monitor our progress due to having faith. We do not have to force a particular outcome because we are confident the result is for the best.
Conclusion
I realized faith resolved my problems with holding on to my negative self-image and my attachment to outcomes. Releasing the causes of distress frees my attention to focus on essential matters like my family, friends, and personal health. A quote from my favorite TV show, White Collar, was, “There’s a difference between loving the idea of someone and actually loving who they really are.” After realizing I loved the idea of specific outcomes, I no longer attach myself to them. Instead, I enjoy the flow of life because I am confident if something is meant to happen it will happen at the appropriate time.
I knew holding on was painful and letting go made me happier; however, I now understand the reasoning. I hang on because I want assurance and tie my happiness to individual outcomes. I also held on because I preferred the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty, which was my motivation behind excessive rumination. I learned my pain was not caused by the magnitude of the issue but by how much energy and attention I dedicated to obsessing about outcomes and focusing on negatives. Most importantly, I learned how to let go when I started believing the dots will connect down the road, which is the only assurance I need. I learned to let go, will you?
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