Attachment and Letting Go

I’ve just had a humbling experience. And when I say “just”, I quite literally mean that… it’s something that happened mere moments ago.

This experience definitely isn’t anything major or life-altering in any serious way, and yet, I’d like to believe I’ve gained — or re-learned — an important life lesson I’m sure we could all be reminded of from time to time.

So what happened? Well, I was finishing up the blog post I had started last night. This blog post had to do with some life lessons and insights I had recently gained from the perspective of parallels between driving lessons and life lessons. I was writing about going with the flow, vs. resisting the flow — both in traffic and in life. I went to save my draft.. and *poof* — it disappeared into oblivion. WordPress kicked me out because my login had expired. Unfortunately, it did NOT save what I had just written when it kicked me out, despite having just clicked on the ‘save draft’ button. D’oh!

I felt, and still do feel to some lesser extent, quite frustrated. I’m frustrated because I really like what I just wrote, and now it’s gone. My words came form a state of flow, which makes sense, since I was just writing about the very idea of being in a state of flow vs. resistance to flow…  And then lo and behold I suddenly encountered resistance from WordPress, resulting in my words being lost forever.

Then I looked closer at my predicament: WordPress wasn’t the one providing the resistance… I was. I’m the one who felt frustrated at what just occurred. I was resistant to having my words lost forever, and I certainly didn’t like the idea of trying to recapture them. This reaction of mine took me out of flow. …Huh. Interesting.

This brief little blog post that you are now reading is a direct reaction — my revised reaction — to my experience of resistance. I didn’t want to feel frustrated. I wanted to turn this little mishap on its heels and see how I could turn it around and somehow make it into a positive experience instead.

I looked closer. Did it have to do with attachment and letting go? If I hadn’t been attached to those words I just wrote and the particular outcome of publishing them to this blog, and if I had instead just accepted what happened with ease and thought nothing of attempting to recapture those words, then I wouldn’t have been resistant to my circumstances. Right? In other words, if I wouldn’t have been attached to those specific words or that outcome, then I would have been completely at peace with letting them go.

But then I looked even closer: This idea of attachment and its direct correlation and cause to suffering is something I’ve had mixed feelings about for quite some time now. I mean… I actually like the idea of attachment. The way I see it, if I’m attached to someone or something, it means I value that person, or item, or whatever the something is that I’m attached to; it means that I’m passionate about it, that I think it’s important, and that I want it to be a part of my life, because in some way, it adds to the value, joy, passion, and quality of my life! So, with that said, how can it be true that attachment is such a bad thing? Does attachment always need to lead to suffering? Would I not have been frustrated and mildly angry if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was attached to those lost words?

I think I need a microscope here, because I’m trying to examine this darn closely. And you know what?  …I think it is possible to be attached to something without it potentially leading to suffering! And I think it all ties in with the idea of being in a constant state of flow.

If you’re going with the flow, you’re responding to life’s circumstances on a moment to moment basis. If something were to happen to take you in an unexpected direction, then going with that new direction of flow wouldn’t cause a flinch. Being in a state of flow would require responding to the present while simultaneously existing in and being attached to that present. i.e. NOT existing in or being attached to the past. Even if it is in response to something that just happened mere moments ago, like where and when I lost my recorded thoughts and words.

Being in the flow means letting go of the past and embracing the present moment. It’s not forcing a future outcome. When I attempted to re-write those words I had just written but lost, it felt forced. It felt like it would have been an unpleasant and annoying pain in the ass to try and recapture what I had written, and this was a result of resisting my present and being attached to the past.

So, instead, I consciously decided to attach myself to the present reality of my circumstances and to let go of the past. I decided to fully embrace this moment, and to write about it here and share my experience with you.

Attachment is a great thing!  As long as you’re attached to the present. The key is in knowing when to let go of a certain moment as it transforms from present to past. This results in being in a state of flow, from which suffering and resistance can happily be avoided.

YAY!

I suppose you could say this blog post is the result of a happy little accident. Ah, serendipity. Now how’s that for turning life’s lemons into lemonade?

Inspirational Quotes

I love inspirational quotes.

I first started collecting inspirational quotes about eight or nine years ago. Around the same time, I received a gift of a small handmade book that was made with handmade paper, and was bound by thread. I decided I wanted to use this book to write down my favorite inspirational quotes.

I also have this little book of quotes that I absolutely love that’s called A Guide for The Advanced Soul. It comes with instructions: Hold a Problem in Your Mind. Open This Book To Any Page. There Will Be Your Answer. It was eerie how often the quote I turned to had just the right wisdom and guidance that I was looking for.

I’d like to share with you a small selection of some of my favorite quotes. They’ve inspired me over the years, and I hope that you’ll find wisdom, insight, guidance and inspiration in their words, too.
 

Quotes for Inspiration

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.” - Helen Keller

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” – Epictetus

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” – George Bernard Shaw

“I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Don’t waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Whatever is at the center of our life will be the source of our security, guidance, wisdom, and power.” – Stephen Covey

“Never forget that the purpose for which a man lives is the improvement of the man himself, so that he may go out of this world having, in his great sphere or his small one, done some little good for his fellow creatures and labored a little to diminish the sin and sorrow that are in the world.” – William E. Gladstone

“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” - Henri-Louis Bergson

“That which oppresses me,
is it my soul
trying to come
out in the open,
or the soul of the world
knocking at my heart
for its entrance?” – Rabindranath Tagore

“By going along with feelings
you unify
your emotional,
mental,
 and bodily states. When you try to fight
or deny them,
you divorce yourself
from the reality of your being.” – Jane Roberts

“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.” – Richard Bach

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” – Richard Bach

“Argue for your limitations and sure enough they’re yours.” – Richard Bach

“Fall in love with what you’re going to do for a living. It’s very important. To be able to get out of bed and do what you love for the rest of the day is beyond words. It’s just great. It’ll keep you around for a long time.” – George Burns

“In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy.” – Albert Clarke

“The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.” – Steve Jobs

“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” – Steve Jobs
 

Albert Einstein Quotes

“The distinction between past, present, and the future is only an illusion, however persistent. Time is not at all what it seems. It does not flow in only one direction, and the future exists simultaneously with the past.”

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.”

“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

“The difference between what the most and the least learned people know is inexpressibly trivial in relation to that which is unknown.”

“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”

“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”

“Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science.”

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.”

“A problem cannot be solved on the same level that it was created.”
 

An Incomplete List

…This list is incomplete. There are many more quotes I love that aren’t listed here, and I’m sure I’ll come across many more that I’ll want to remember.

Perhaps I’ll continue to update this list with more quotes as time passes.
 

What are some of you favorite quotes? Perhaps I’ll add yours to my list.