Can You Win by Giving Up?

There is no peace, there is only uproar. Many have died, many are ill, more are getting sick, struggles continue. We've got to fight to win, right?

Pressures of the world are great and every day there is something more upsetting in the news. This undermines our sense of control, our need to manage the most basic of things, any sense of calm.

But when I set aside a few minutes to get still and quiet, I feel muscles relax that I hadn’t noticed were tense. I notice my anxious need to do something fade. I am aware that things are still not right or all done, but I can let go for a while. When I sit with the intent of connecting with myself and God at a deeper level, I begin to let things go.

Like you, I carry a collection of unfinished tasks and hoped for problem resolutions. These make me feel driven to “do something” and to judge myself as failing.

I feel I have failed at tasks I have to do, such as staying in touch with friends and even household repair. I feel I have failed to write all the posts, emails and articles that could be written. I even feel that I haven’t done enough to solve problems of our country and world. There is almost no end to the possibilities of guilt and anxiety that can be gathered up and held onto.

So I need to let go. I know many things can’t be let go of permanently, they are going to come back around again to be handled. But some stuff can be let go because it was never realistic to carry it in the first place.

Remember that the Serenity Prayer talks about letting go? You need serenity, or a peaceful acceptance of the things you can’t change. The long version of the prayer adds verses about “living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time…taking the world as it is, not as I would have it.”

The prayer also asks for the “courage to change the things which should be changed,” so letting go is not the same as giving up. Letting go is seeing the things that you are holding onto tightly, so tightly that they are twisting up your muscles and your mind. Holding on to what you should let go of, makes for aching bodies and anxious spirits.

What are you holding on to? What do you hope to gain by holding on?
Do you think you can really change this unchangeable thing? Do you have a god-complex so you must be the one to fix this? Or are you so used to taking care of everyone and everything around you that you haven’t seen this thing has hold of you, instead of you having hold of it?

Make time for space and quiet. You need it. You cannot hold it all. Give up some time, give up some control. And win some peace and clarity.