Let it Alone

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things

which he can afford to let alone.

Thoreau

If we were more conscious of our Things, Emotions, Judgments, and Comparisons who could we be?

our Things

What do we keep? A common question when cleaning out our basement, garage or the home of the deceased. What the heck is important to me? Our task then becomes a combination of dust and sweat and a walk down memory lane. Why do we have all this stuff?

Let it Alone: Things, Emotions, Judgments, Comparison

When we decide however to not bring these items into our dwelling, when we have paused long enough to say “No, I don’t need this” or “let me think about it” we have chosen to increase the value of our belongings. Our cluttered shelves and closets, our arrangement of knick-knacks, and boxes of old photos and trophies have the ability to keep us tied to who we once were. They could even be blocking your path to whom we are on the way to becoming. Too many things slowed down the progress of the settlers travelling to new lands even back then.

If you had one trunk to take on your voyage, how would you choose? And then halfway to your destination, you were told to skinny up those choices, what would you then decide?

Once there was a man that had to leave his home quickly, his caregiver had died. This man packed his belongings in one box. Clean socks, a few pairs of jeans, a t-shirt or two. He walked out the door unencumbered. He was ready to start a new adventure. I saw it with my own eyes.

If only it were that easy, you think. Right?

Some of us have hobbies we will get to someday, items that we might need down the road and stored items of grown children. We comfort ourselves with these things. Why are we afraid to let go of them? We use these Things as an excuse to not look at our Now. Leave the accumulation of things alone.

our Emotions

I should be angrier, she said to me. I should just hate him for what he did to me. But I cannot. I cannot give him more of my energy, my life, my heart. She told me this and she could be anyone you know. She could be speaking of her father who ignored and then disowned her, she could be referring to her step-brother who was a little too touchy. She might be speaking about her neighbour who has late into the night parties or the volunteer leader who always knows best.

What she decided though was to move on. To leave it behind, she would not make it a part of her future story. Not easy right? But she got to choose. Only she was in charge of how she would feel. What she chose was to be Brave, to trust that she had been given a lesson. She would not give away her control to someone else. And hence the petty small office gossip and the loud abrasive person in line at the movie theatre did not enter her. She let it go because she’d been practising all this time.

Emotions will come and go. Release the ones that don’t heal you. (Tweet This) Leave the emotions alone.

The Things We Think We Know

Now, when you are looking around for characters, ones you know or those in your periphery, there is never a shortage of whom to draw from. We get used to the people around us. We overlook their oddities, their frailties, we don’t see their weirdness as time goes on.

The Things We Think We  Know - what do you see?

Have you ever introduced a friend to someone you have worked with for years.Then your friend says, “wow, what a big nose” or “good grief, is she ever insecure”. And you are surprised, shocked even maybe. Because you have gotten used to seeing this person as a flattened version of whom they are. You’ve picked which parts of them you need to or can deal with and ignored the rest. 


But someone new is meeting them for the first time, they are picking up an energy and an "introduction" that you’ve forgotten. So let your unconnected people meet and then listen for their reactions. It is such a good way to create a character whom you have forgotten. And I will leave it up to you, if you make them a hero or kill them off at the end of the page.

The man I am marrying next week was telling me about a time in his life about 30 years ago when the boys spent a great deal of time trying to meet girls. It seems they played a game of “guess what she does for a living”. An appalling excuse to scrutinize women, I say! But again valuable if you need to write a new character.

Now, of course, we’ve all made up stories of the people who cross our path. We love to think that the prim, pearl-wearing- necklace-person has a stripper pole in her bedroom, or that the big, mean-looking football player is counting down the days until the Christmas movies start on the women’s network.

We make up stories, all the time. We need them to make sense of our world. We need them to understand others, even if the things we think we know are totally wrong.  

We make up stories to make sense of our world. (Tweet This)

The things we think we know can be totally wrong, and they still make sense to us. (Tweet This)

I’m Sorry, and I Really Have to Say This, Thanks

We are constantly saying Sorry. Do we mean it, and if so there shouldn’t really be a need for a second apology for the same offense? Right?

I'm Sorry, and Thanks. Pixabay Courtesy of Ben_Kerckx

We say Sorry in a hundred different ways. Sorry I took the last piece of banana loaf but... Sorry I was late but... Sorry I spent the money but... Why do people add the “But”? Please don’t justify. Please don’t make excuses. Please explain WHY you’re Sorry.

Like many of you reading this, I learned about the shallowness of Sorry for a long period of my life. If you’ve ever been the recipient of this kind of Sorry, you too will remember those circumstances. Many times you would have heard it through the speaker’s bashfulness, their tears, their supposed remorse.

Yes, there are people who feel that their Sorry is all that's needed.