Letting go

 

 

It's no secret that most of our problems in life stem from the inability to let go, and letting go can mean a lot of different things. It can mean making a change, educating yourself, walking away from something, someone or a particular belief. The reason we, as a race, remain gullible and malleable and victimized is often because we cannot get out of our own way and let go of the things that we

 

1) don't believe in

 

2) know we don't need

 

3) don't really want

 

 

We're afraid of loss, even if that loss is by our own choice, so we hang on to things because it's easier than stepping [oh, here I go] out of that comfort zone.

 

I know I just whined about wanting to actually be IN a comfort zone. But I think there are too different kinds of comfort zones. There are the ones that you're actually really comfortable in - that place where you are content, and so much of society is about ignoring contentment as a form of happiness and always striving for MORE because it makes someone else money... and then there are the comfort zones where you're not really comfortable, you just don't want to take the chance that if you leave you will be even less comfortable.

 

 

Example - a friend of mine has been talking about moving for many years. This person is unhappy in their current living situation and dreams of going somewhere else, but they continue to put up every road block imaginable. In addition to a litany of reasons why moving would be really hard, they continue to add additional issues to their life that would compound those problems thus assuring that the act of actually moving to a new place would be even more difficult than it has to be.

 

Letting go is hard.

 

One of the things I can't let go of is my dysfunctional relationship with the internet. I HATE the internet. I despise Yahoo, yet I go there everyday and read junk news. I revile Facebook, but I don't have the courage to actually just shut down my profile and stop caring what goes on there.

 

 

I blame Facebook for helping rob me of my desire to write, because I spend too much time scrolling through other people's useless flotsam. I blame Facebook for ruining a friendship because someone I used to like is a complete asshole on Facebook, and seeing this side of that person makes me less inclined to want to spend time with them in real life. I don't know if that's really a good thing or not. It was perhaps better when I thought this person was a nice person and I enjoyed their company. Now I find interacting with and thinking about this person tends to up my stress level - hence this post. In the past I have disconnected from people who made me feel uncomfortable in my own head - even if all my interactions with them were generally pleasant seeming and friendly, I would come away from every conversation inexplicably feeling bad. Not in the same way the rabid narcissist makes me feel bad, because I couldn't pinpoint anything particular this person said or did that bothered me. I just felt depressed after being around them. That friendship didn't end as much as it simply faded away, and I have never ONCE missed it. So I think perhaps it was a good thing.

 

The friendship in question today used to be my lifeline. But it's been stretched so thin, and provides me with no joy or comfort anymore, only that vague feeling of uneasiness and awkward unpleasantness that I have no need to feel. In this case there are specific things that bother me, but I also feel like there is just a general difference in this person, they've become someone I don't know as opposed to the person they used to be whom I loved and very much needed in my life. For a long time I've felt this person doesn't need me, and I see that I spent a lot of time chasing this person for attention that dried up when I stopped being the instigator of our interactions.

 

Sadly, each day brings me closer to the conclusion that it might be time to walk away from this. If interacting with someone leaves me feeling unhappy - why should I do it if I don't have to? I don't think I'll be missed by them... and while I miss the person they used to be, I don't think that person exists any more.

 

Time to let go...or at least think about it.