Let Go

Holding onto the past or what happened before prevents growth. Holding on is a leach that sucks the soul of progress. Holding on is a reason to remain in your prior life, your prior self. Letting go gives you freedom. It releases the weights of the past and lets you soar into the unknown of the rest of today, of tomorrow, of the rest of your life. Let go. Move on.

"It's hard to grow beyond something if you won't let go of it” — James Clear

Mistakes happen. Arguments happen. Things meant to be said are left unsaid. Intended action does not materialize. These scenarios are all parts of life we most likely cannot avoid. We all will make mistakes, have arguments, obsess over not saying something when we should have, and realize points in our lives where we should have willed our bodies to move. Regardless of the situation or the point of regret, we must let go. Sending our mind’s capacity to focus on these issues in the past is equivalent to running a race by taking one step back for every two steps we take forward. Two steps forward, one step back. Two steps forward, one step back. An inefficient cadence we cannot escape unless we let go.

Holding on pulls us back no matter the progress we think we are still achieving. Holding on pulls us back and tears our attention away from what is important in the present moment. Letting go gives us the freedom we need to obtain in order to escape the grasp of the past. Letting go is not always the easy choice. It is very easy to obsess over how an argument could have gone differently or how a mistake should not have been made if we acted differently. Letting go is a conscious and deliberate choice we need to lean into in order to realize. It is not a choice that comes by sitting idly. By letting go we warp our perspective to instead focus on the present or the future. We use our past to change our actions going forward but we no longer obsess over what cannot be changed.

Refusing to grow beyond anything in our lives is a reason to be stuck in the past. The past is the past for a reason. Choose to let go and choose to reap the benefits that will come when this sort of freedom overflows your mind and body. Just let go.