Letting Go

I’ve more or less written about this before, but the more I reflect on it, the more I realize the importance of simply letting things be. When I’m caught in a maelstrom of emotion that distracts me from my creative priorities, I convince myself that I have to try to resolve the issue. It’s fixable with just a bit of emotional work, unpacking, and conversation. But sometimes it’s simply going to be what it’s going to be.

There can be immense freedom in choosing to rise above it.

Of course I’m all for seeing things to their end and seeking justice for those who’ve been wronged. But getting to a mental state of recognizing you are more than the issue, that the stress doesn’t define you, can open up a world with so much more positivity and possibility. And being creative is often about living in that world: glimpsing into better futures, even if for the time being they’re imaginary. It’s taking the crap that comes our way and reinventing it to help move us into new terrain.

Sometimes we can let the crappy stuff weigh us down too much and forget that we’re actually supposed to be using it to propel ourselves forward. If we can’t, if we find the crappy stuff too heavy and a hindrance to our progress, then perhaps we can free ourselves from it instead of the other way around. Perhaps the resulting lightness allows us to float well away from it.

And maybe we can take a glimpse back at the crap every now and then, just to see if its complexity makes sense from the new angle.