Let it go

We all have experience in knowing how difficult it is to let go of some things. This could be something we own but really don’t like very much any longer but, oh my, my Aunt Robbie gave that little porcelain swan to me… so we hang on to it.

Or a past hurt that we have spent years nurturing so it can still cause us pain (or anger or sadness) whenever we dredge it up once more….hello, old destructive friend. Let me hang on to you for a few more miserable years.

Or it could be our work, oh my, can anyone really do this as I well as I can do it? I am exhausted but I can’t quit. People have expectations of me. People admire me. Why would I let go of this? Maybe because in some ways it is killing me?

I have been thinking a lot about how difficult it is to let go, especially letting go of our work. I am retired now and I have let go of my work. It wasn’t easy, but it can be done.

I looked forward to retirement so I could enjoy the many things I never had time for when I was working. Writing. Art. Music. Films. Children. Grandchildren. Oh, I gave a little bit of time and effort here and there to activities other than my work and to those outside that realm of my career, but I will admit to being a workaholic for multiple decades. I wanted everything I did to be excellent, perfect. After all, wasn’t that my calling?

One of the reasons I think it is hard to let go of our work, be it paid, professional or volunteer, is that others—the whole world, in general—loves a good workaholic. We like those people who show up at work at 7 AM and work until it is dark-thirty. We like those people who even though they could retire, don’t. We admire those people who even though they are sick or injured, just keep on keeping on. Not for their sake. But for the sake of pleasing the world that loves a committed workaholic.

Comments I have heard lately:

I am so impressed with what a hard-worker she/he is. I was here one Saturday morning and there she/he was..at her desk. Working! She is amazing!

(What on earth..why on earth..do we applaud someone giving up their weekend to come into the office and work??)

I have enough money to retire but I really want to work a few more years just to be sure. Plus two people in my office are leaving. I have to stay. Who else is going to do this work?

(All said to the applause of co-workers and friends and even family sometimes—please note that none of us know how many years we have left on this planet. The clock is always running. Tick tock tick tock…

But I like my work. I don’t want to let it go. I’m very good at it.

(Yes, why let it go because that would make space for someone new with fresh ideas and an abundance of energy—AKA youth— to take on this work. Perhaps it is a time to discover other things you like or might like other than work.)

Yes, he is back in the ICU. But a full recovery is expected and he hopes to be back at work very soon.

(Seriously. We expect someone who is in the ICU to come back to work—soon?!? We don’t like sick people. We like worker bees).

Now don’t get me wrong. I loved my work. I really did. But that love is often what traps us into not being able to see that it is time to let it go. We are not indispensable. No one is.

Let me repeat that. No one is.

Many years ago I was riding in a car with my mother and I don’t really remember what our topic of conversation was about though in retrospect I think she was trying to tell me that I needed to let go of trying to be perfect. My mother said, “You know, if you put your hand in a bucket of water, you can move your hand and stir that water all around. Splishing and splashing. But when you take your hand out of the water, the water will just settle down and it won’t ever remember that once your hand made it splash and splash.”

Hmmm. I was addicted to the splishing and splashing. I was addicted to being the hand that everyone noticed and applauded for all my hard work. But the truth was that the water would all settle down and sooner or later, in sickness or in health, I would no longer be there to keep the water moving.

Let it go and know that someone else will step in. Let it go so you can step towards new adventures.

I write these things not to demean in any way the good work so many people do. I believe I did good work too. And I also know how difficult it is to let it go.

When I first retired—after sleeping for about a month from sheer exhaustion—I was truly at a loss. I had looked forward to retirement so that I would have time to write. During that first year of retirement I would sit at the computer wanting to write and not one decent sentence would appear. I felt lost and empty. The biggest activity of my week was going to the grocery store. What kind of life is this I wondered? Why on earth did I retire?!?!

There was an enormous temptation to jump back in to my previous work world. Perhaps I could just work part time. Perhaps I really should not have retired. I didn’t like feeling lost. It was painful.

But I kept recalling an interview I had seen with Joseph Campbell years earlier when he was retiring from teaching. He was asked if he was going to teach on occasion. He replied, “No. I am going to re-invent myself.”

As painful as it was to step away from my working life, I knew that I wanted and very much needed to re-invent myself. Yes, there are people who know how to hold their work lightly not tightly and lead a balanced life. I admire them greatly. But I know that I am not one of those people. I am all in or I am not in at all.

As I get older I realize what an incredible gift life itself is. There won’t be another round after this one. I had to learn to let go so that I could go forward—and so I could be happy focusing on my own life and the life of my family rather than working myself to exhaustion at work. So I could play music and create art and write a blog and have time to breathe and enjoy my re-invented life.

To everything there is a season. There is a season for work, for career, for professional accomplishments, but there is also a season to let it go. To move into new territory no matter how frightening that may be at the time.

Let it go, let it go

And I'll rise like the break of dawn

Let it go, let it go

That perfect girl is gone …

Maybe that is what I was really holding on to—trying to be that perfect girl. I could not see how impossible and ridiculous that really was. Sometimes it is just time to let it go and move on. It is really not a lot of fun trying to be perfect. But it can be tremendous fun to just let it go.