When Letting Go Is the Only Way to Live
”We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.”
– Joseph Campbell
In any project, performance or journey there is a point at which we must let go. This point isn’t the end of anything, it isn’t the culmination of our responsibilities; it is only the beginning. So often we are afraid to let go of anything. We cling to things tightly in the hopes of finding security. But is there any need for that type of holding on? What can we gain by letting go? What do we lose by hanging on?
To answer these questions, we must first define what we mean when we discuss letting go. Giving up is not letting go. We have to remove that idea from our hearts and minds before we can truly discover the peace that letting go can bring. Letting go of anything doesn’t mean it is the end of your work, or the conclusion of your journey. We talk about letting go in relation to parents and cutting the proverbial apron strings. Some parents have a harder time with this than others and it doesn’t really matter why. What are important are the effects this can have. We know that a child who is coddled for too long can become socially stunted in their growth; the same can be said of any work that isn’t let go when its time comes.
Painters know that there comes a time when a painting is complete and their work must cease. They also know that if they do not stop themselves, they will work on one painting forever. Those who have that difficulty letting go tend to call themselves “Perfectionist.” Don’t be fooled by this title though, they are not after perfection, they are scared.
All of us are perfectionists; we all want to do our best. None of us wants to create a masterpiece that isn’t our best work or isn’t our view of “perfection.” But those who refer to themselves as perfectionist generally aren’t. They are generally people who are looking for security. The actor who constantly changes his performance is not in search of perfection, he is in search of plausible deniability. Final decisions leave room for criticism, but a work in progress is safe. The painter who constantly changes her painting is not a perfectionist. She’s afraid of being wrong, not struggling to be right.
In every project there are two simple stages. These stages have no concrete names or processes; they are simply the most generalized maps we can draw.
Stage One is a planning and learning stage, the stage of ideas. This is when we spend most of our time plotting and brainstorming. It’s when we develop our characters, read our scripts. It’s when we sketch our pictures and mix our colors. This is the stage of learning when we gather the necessary skills. Some we already possess, others we must seek out specifically for our task. It is this first stage where our knowledge, our experience and our imagination all come together. We gather all our resources and get everything moving forcefully in the same direction.
Then comes the second stage where the letting go begins.
Stage Two is the working phase. This is the stage where we begin our endeavors, and ultimately where we will end them. We paint our images, we perform our roles and write our books. But we do not “let go” of our works at the end of this stage, because to work productively we must have already let them go in the beginning.
So often we think that the “letting go” comes after we have completed our tasks, but that is only an illusion. The letting go comes before we have even begun. The perfectionist painter begins with no intentions of ever being truly finished. The perfectionist actor begins with no intentions of ever leaving his script at home. The second stage of our process truly begins only when we have put our faith firmly in our abilities. If we doubt ourselves, our work is not work at all, it’s only so much noise and distraction and business of our bodies.
You see, the truly artistic moment comes through the faith that our preparation is complete. We begin our work by letting go of the idea of perfection and the fear of rejection. We find the courage inside of us that shouts our talent into our own ears. Before we hit the stage we find in our hearts that voice which says we are ready. We are prepared. We have learned what needed to be learned and experienced what needed to be experienced so that we could create the art we see in our minds.
Letting go is the process by which we step out of the way of our better self. We remove the self-doubt that blocks it. Parents leave their fears of the world behind and the doubts they possess about their children. Only then can they truly let go and watch the magic they have created unfold. Because, you see, childhood and adolescence is Stage One. The child soaks up the rules and laws of the world they are in. They learn everything they can so that they may be prepared for Stage Two when they must trust they are ready to join the larger world.
Letting go is not the end that we fear, it is the beginning of the journey we wish to take. When we have let go of our fear and doubt; when we have left behind the idea of perfection; when have come into the knowledge that we are powerful and given up our weakness, then and only then can we create the beauty we see.
You can survive by holding on, but you can only live by Letting Go.
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3 Responses to “When Letting Go Is the Only Way to Live”
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Two things, one, this is very good advice though, let’s not confuse “letting go,” with being inadequately prepared.
Also, If we doubt ourselves, our work is not work at all, it’s only so much noise and distraction and business of our bodies.
On Friday I saw “300″ and on Saturday I had the most stressful audition of my career. The Spartan adage, “Return with your shield or on it,” struck me as I entered the audition. I knew this one was going to be a doozy and that the only way to succeed was to be balls to the wall, so to speak. There can be no room for doubt once the curtain goes up.
I find out about callbacks this week.
Thomas,
Thanks for always making such good points. We can’t let ourselves use letting go as an excuse for not having been prepared. It can be so tempting to have an easy out like that, but if you’ve truly prepared yourself then letting go is a natural step toward success.
Letting go doesn’t make things happen for you, it allows you to make them happen. It gets you out of the way of You.
–Daniel Roach
p.s. Be sure to write in and let us know when you find out about those call backs.
Hi Daniel
I coudn’t agree more. I have written about this and it is such a great feeling to let go and trust your preparation. This is also true with life in general, sometimes we cannot influence something at all so all we can do is let go and ‘let it be’.
Great post.