If it has gone, simply, let it go!

When something or someone goes out of your Life, simply let ‘em go! Understand that loss is an integral part of living!

Last evening, my phone fell down on the street, hit a kerbside stone, and the display screen cracked irreparably. I was shocked for a nano-second. Then I picked up the instrument to check if it was working.  It was. I dusted it and moved on – after double-checking all its functions. I smiled to myself. Some years ago, I would never have been this way. I would have grieved and sulked. Especially, in a situation when replacing the phone instantly is not an option – I don’t have the means to buy a new phone! In fact, even this one was gifted to me by a friend some months ago. As I looked at my battered phone later in the evening, I remembered an incident that happened eight years ago. I am a collector of LAMY pens. And at that time, I was using one daily. I simply loved the look and feel of these pens. I was naturally very possessive about my LAMY collection. On a flight from Chennai to Mumbai, I lost my blue LAMY. I remember how I grieved through all my meetings that day in Mumbai and how I needed more than a few drinks that evening to get the blue LAMY out of my mind. In contrast, I felt good with myself surveying my phone last evening – with my ability to have let go of what had already gone (broke)!

There’s a beautiful song from the 1961 Tamil classic Paalum Pazhamum (A.Bhimsingh, Sivaji Ganesan, Saroja Devi) which goes “Ponaal Pogattum Poda…” (Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy, Kannadasan, T.M. Soundarajan). The lyrics basically mean, “If it has gone, let it go…everything/everyone is impermanent…)! That song, to me, sums up what Life is all about! 

Indeed. Everything and everyone around us has to go one day. The very nature of Life is impermanent. If you pause for a moment to reflect, you will realize that you came with nothing and you will go with nothing. Your name, your wealth, your qualifications, your experiences, your memories, your relationships – nothing will make it with you. When it is your time, you will have to go. Period. This is one non-negotiable quality about Life. Then, if you care to reflect more, why do we cling on to almost everyone and everything? It is because we cling on, because we don’t let go, that we suffer. What happens to us is not in our control – whether it is a broken mobile phone or a broken relationship or the death of someone we love. But how we let things and people go, when it is time for them to go, out of our lives, can truly impact how we feel about and experience Life. If you resist what’s going or gone, you will find Life to be an endless struggle. But if you let go gracefully, you will be drenched in inner peace and happiness – no matter what the circumstances are!