Turn Loose!

Until midlife, we acquire skills, things, and social pow­ers. It is an uphill climb. We arrive at the top of life’s moun­tain and real­ize that the trail merely goes down the other side. All we acquired, we even­tu­ally lose. From the first breath to the last is usu­ally less than a cen­tury. The far side of the moun­tain may be a long and grad­ual slope…or a cliff. The upside may be steep. You may “arrive” by the time you are thirty or so. Oth­ers do not arrive until sixty or so. Then what?

The moun­tain is a lit­tle dif­fer­ent for all of us. Some have their jour­neys cut short. The impor­tant thing to real­ize, on either side of the moun­tain, is that to truly have any of it, you must detach from all of it. You can’t take the moun­tain with you. You are just tak­ing the jour­ney for the expe­ri­ence. Relax. Take in the view. There is noth­ing you col­lect along the way that you can keep. Begin pass­ing what you do have along early. There is great joy in watch­ing oth­ers expe­ri­ence those goods too.

Right now, all you have is right now. That is a good place to be. In fact, it is the only place you can be. You can­not hold onto it, so you might as well turn loose. This thing called life is a whole lot more than what you can put in a box and carry around. Turn loose of what you think oth­ers think of you and even turn loose of what YOU think of you. Those bur­dens weigh you down. Live light. Take one step at a time. Breathe deeply. You could not imag­ine this life before you got here and you can­not imag­ine what is next.