Letting Go

I resurrected this blog because I had some issues to work through regarding happiness and this felt like the place to do it. Things have recently taken an unexpected turn, and I haven't been sure how to write about it, but I'm going to try.

I think I mentioned finding it difficult to hold, simultaneously, the need to live up to my potential on one hand, and the need to find happiness and contentment in the present on the other. The state of my heart was revealed a couple weeks ago as I was looking at a picture of a dying woman. She was outside on a sunny day, and I wondered if she found any happiness in that moment. Then I wondered if I, who am so good at being unhappy, would be able to find happiness in such a moment. It surprised me that I imagined I would. (It's probably worth paying attention when one envies the dying.) The reason: The weight of my future would be off my shoulders. I think one of the biggest reasons I don't enjoy the present as much as I would like to is that the future weighs too heavily upon it. Perhaps living up to my potential, while a valid need, is unduly taking precedence over the need to find contentment and happiness now. Perhaps contentment is a need whose time has come.

Thus, I intend to let go. Let go of the ambition, so much of which felt too broadly distributed to be effective, but which I am unwilling to narrow down. Let go of the need to "make something" of myself, to prove to myself and the world that I am good at things and a hard worker. Let go of the idea that my life isn't what it should be, and an indication that I must not deserve more. I haven't been happy, largely because I've felt like I shouldn't be happy -- that I haven't reached an acceptable plateau, one that would merit maintaining instead of continued scrambling up the cliffside. But perhaps where I am right now would be perfectly enjoyable if I allowed myself to relax and simply maintain it.

-- I won't need to wait until I've worked up the oomph to learn monologues, so I can then take auditions, so I can be in more plays, so I can be a respected actress, so that then I can be happy.

-- I won't need to keep taking hours out of my precious days off to take awkward auditions for commercials, so that I can eventually get paying gigs, so I can be earning more money, so that then I can be happy.

-- I won't have to wonder, with each blog post, whether it will land me a book deal so I can finally say I've achieved something, and my hard work will have paid off, and the world will listen to what I have to say and everyone will like me, and then I can be happy.

-- I won't need to make myself go out more than I want and pretend to be more outgoing than I am and try to enjoy the same "fun" other people enjoy so I can meet the right guy, so we can fall in love and get married, so that then I can be happy.

-- I can stop worrying about how my jeans fit and whether I'm exercising enough, because disease and illness would of course be my fault, and also I want to be attractive, and then I'll know I'm doing everything right and then I can be happy.

I will just be happy. Now. At last. If happiness is a capacity that we can cultivate, then this choice to let go is how I think I will best cultivate it.

I won't have to be sad at holidays because I'm another year older and my circumstances haven't changed much. My life carries an undercurrent of fear that I don't have much to show for my 39 years on this planet because I'm too shy or too scared or too lazy, or all three, and I'm left in this uncomfortable limbo where I don't feel safe relaxing, but the motivation to do more would only be guilt and fear.

This is what I want to let go of.

My job may not make me rich or famous, but it is good and it suits me and it is enough. My apartment may not be big enough to hold all my stuff, but it is affordable and I have it to myself and it is enough. I may be sensitive and complicated and slow to find my way, but I am myself and I am enough.

Each seed of a moment won't be a disappointment because it failed to lead to some preconceived idea of success. It can just be a yummy little seed that I enjoyed while it existed; and perhaps joy is the best thing I could ask of my moments for a while.

This means I may not have interesting updates when people ask me how things are progressing -- the career, the search for a condo, my love life -- but when asked how I am, I will be able to say, "Well. I am doing really, really well."