Letting Go

I had the happy circumstance of two messages from different sources intersecting on the same topic. First was the daily mediation on Headspace, where he said that rather than seek to find calm, let go of thinking. Rather than seeking clarity, let go of confusion. The message was that we "effort" everything as if were work tasks to complete. We look for answers, rather than allowing them to come forth by letting go.

The second instance was a result of reading Meditation for Mortals, by Oliver Burkeman. The day 15 reading is titled "What if this were easy: on the false allure of effort". Again, we orient around "effort" and Burkeman discusses the need to find, create or force motivation to put forth the effort to do things. We often make tasks feel they will be harder than they really are, or we make them harder by overcomplicating them. This requires generating or "finding" all the more motivation. I know, at our house, we both find that there are tasks we do where we realize we thought about them for far more hours than it took to actually do the thing - which ends up being not that hard.

That chapter in Burkeman's book is the first of a week about letting go. So, both sources I encountered were on the same theme. I realized how much I've been overthinking and over researching things, let alone putting off tasks. One example is looking for a new vehicle. I've read many sources, listened to podcasts and watched many videos. Finally, my partner says we need to just drive them. We drove three, and I nevertheless dove back into my research.

There are two things I was trying to conquer here - optimizing the choice and forestalling regrets over the choice. We could do complete discussions about "optimizing" and "avoiding regrets", but a simple truth is this is hardly a life or death decision. What if I let the future take care of itself? I have created confusion, rather than find clarity.

What if this were easy?