Holding On

Holding on :

Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.” – Anonymous

“It's weird...you know the end of something great is coming, but you want to hold on, just for one more second...just so it can hurt a little more.” - Anoymous

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. The older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.”  - Mary Schmich

Letting go isn’t easier, but holding on even harder, said the Blonde actress to her husband whom she still loved, while divorcing in Amrtisar to LA. And it touched me then and there. Those who love and loved truly ,those who felt and felt deeply, those who  trusted and trusted completely , also know one thing to do. And they do it because the know it needs to be done. And that is to hold on. 

To hold on a bleeding person in the arms in ambulance after an accident. To hold on the eyes on the screen of incubator of Neo natal care of the preemie. To hold on the last strand of energy in the aching muscle of a lone traveler. To keep staring at the drive way when the date is already an hour late.

The free gift that comes with holding on is the risk of being proved wrong. It depends on us if we want to take the risk. But very few people are able to evaluate the temporary gain they may receive by eliminating the risk vis a vis the lifelong loss that may occur if they don’t.  A healthy child, a surviving partner, a virgin natural spot, a smile on the face to see the person actually waited are few of the gains that come from holding on.

Above all, at times we hold on not because we want to, but because we don’t want the other person to regret later on, of not finding us where the person left us. Of giving in to his temporary madness of wanting to move away, push us away. We hold on not because we have too much faith in ourselves, but because we don’t want the other person to be proven wrong for his faith in us.

But then sometimes all we are left with is only ourselves and our wait, our foolish optimism. So how we do evaluate how much is too much? How do we know how long to continue holding on?  The answer lies within us. When we look inside with closed eyes towards the world but open eyes of the heart, we would be able to listen the answer. Of all the purity of acts that we put in, the deepest of emotions we nurtured it with and the single mindedly passion for it, our heart will tell us to hold on.

And holding on doesn’t mean to do the same things in the same manner. Infact the forms may change, but the intention remains the same with un-flickering faith. Above all it leaves us not with self doubt but with confidence. Not restlessness but with peace within. Not insecurity but surety 

within.

 Afterall holding on is not about self. It is about believing twice the amount you used to, in absence of the other, because the other is struggling with their faith for timebeing. So hold on so  that things can be back the way they were or even better after some time.

Letting Go :

Letting Go :

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on."
~Havelock Ellis~

Having experienced loss and hurt, very few people are able to let it go. It is so easy for us to let go of happiness and good times , but somehow we humans have a big problem in letting go of the pain , hurt and suffering.  Instead of clinging onto happy times and moments we tend to do the opposite. People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar."  as said by Thich Nhat Hanh

And the cases of letting go are not always of the unrequited love. We sometimes tend to not let go of our attachments to certain things, way of living, people & relations. Above all there are so many of them who are not able to let go of the life itself. It doesn’t mean to go ahead and commit suicide but their want of experiencing more in life, makes their breaths keep going. How many of us know to pack beautifully and leave gracefully? How many of us are able to walk away when it is time to walk away? We keep on lingering on what was once there but is no longer now. Anon has beautifully said that “Letting go doesn’t mean giving up, but rather accepting that there are things that cannot be. “

How do we let go ?  Sometimes this starts with physical form. With artifacts. Sometimes from moving away from the place to getting away from the things, pictures, and slowly the memories.  Creating a lifestyle which has many substitutes. Of replacing it with new schedules, things, objects of interests and areas of focus. At times external help is also required. The moments of vulnerability will be many. The urge to go back, sit down or not move on will be very high. But with a mental determination it is possible.  As said by Herman Hesse – “Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go."

When do we decide to let go? Well, the time is- now and the place is -here. The very presence of thought, option of letting go is an indication that it is the time to let go. At times we cannot leave the person, situation in lurch and leave immediately. But at times we have to.  Do it not because there is no other option, but do it , because that is exactly what needs to be done.

We don’t always let go because we want to, but because many a times the other person wants to. Afterall if we are 50% of a relationship, so is the other person too. Coming together into a relationship is a mutual choice of both the persons in relation, but sadly walking away or walking out is a decision of one of them. So how is the other person supposed to react on it? Simply , if the other person ever felt truly, then the person is supposed to respect the decision of other. Cos either its there forever, or it never was. One action of walking out cannot or rather should not affect your feelings for the other. After all it is the person and his qualities we like, not the decisions. 

“You don't need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding.” - Guy Finley

Loss

Loss :

At the temple, there is a poem called "Loss", carved into the stone. It has three words...but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read "Loss"... Only feel it.

Sayuri ( Memoirs of Geisha )

Everyone of us eventually dies. But its just that few stop breathing long time after they are dead.

What and how much transpires from the human soul decides our lifetime. And then we remain with nothing but a loss.

What we call the process of growing up is actually a shift in our focus of viewing things and seeing them from new perspectives.  If we would have grieved for the loss itself, we would have had been more peace with ourselves. What makes us restless is what we remain with, after the loss.

A child cries for a lost pencil but doesn’t miss it after few hours and hence is not scarred for lifetime. A lost companion, a lost opportunity makes us grieve not for the moment of loss, or object of loss but at the moments when we experience the loss. When we realize that it should not have been the way it is, but the way we expected, wanted, hoped, wished or dreamt it to be, it is then the feeling of loss hits us the worst. This ability to hang on in the past while with other foot in present and sight at future is what we call growing up.  This is what “becoming a man / woman” does to us. We loose the innocence to cry for the loss and focus our crying on what we remain after the loss.  No wonder the bitterest tears are shed over the words left unsaid. Because they are the tears of a scarred soul. They are tears of a person who has not just had a loss, but has chosen to experience loss for every passing moment for rest of his life.

When two people come together, they become part of each other. But when they separate they take this part of other with themselves too, and leave a part of them behind too. One of them appreciates, grows, lives with the additional part of other, but the other one of them grieves for the missing part of the self. The other person doesn’t acknowledge the left over part of the former but misses out on the part of the self that the other person took away. And life is all about becoming complete, while death is all about losing, deteriorating, disintegrating. And this is how loss takes us a step closer to death.

Though the outcome of loss is death, the beauty of loss is that to experience loss you need to experience being wanted.  Experience  giving. Experience receiving. Experience owning. Experience LOVE.

The choice is ours to make. To live with memories of loss , or to live with memories of Love.

Hurt

Hurt :

“There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt. “ - Erma Bombeck

“Two things scare me. The first is getting hurt. But that's not nearly as scary as the second, which is losing. “ - Lance Armstrong

In this single lifetime of ours, chances are that some of us may come across people who have never loved. There will also be few of them who have loved and were never loved back. But among all of us who exist, there will be not a single person who is never hurt.

Hurt, in any shade of it, with any intensity of it, with any impact of it. Somewhere somehow sometimes, the only thing that binds all is this one shade of emotion - Hurt. And the only feeling that separates us all are also the various shades of this Hurt.

A hurt lover, a hurt parent, a hurt child, a hurt employee, a hurt friend, a hurt neighbor. Infact this is the only emotion with which we can even affect a stranger. Guaranteed.

This is also the only emotion for which we cannot decide the intensity of giving but somehow are aware of the intensity of the reaction of receiver. And yet we choose to act otherwise at times.

So how do we handle this most common of feeling with such myriad hues? Who decides how the receiver is supposed to feel, handle this? When the giver is not sure of the intensity of giving this, then how can the giver ensure that it is not misinterpreted?

I believe the only person who can be the best judge of the how the receiver should react towards hurt is the receiver himself. Incase of love, we love the person not the way the person understands love , but the way we know how to love. The receiver is supposed to understand our forms of expression and acknowledge and react accordingly. So goes with happiness. I would know to make someone else happy only by the ways and things that make me happy too.

But it’s not the case with Hurt. You may get hurt with a statement that other person finds funny. You may not get hurt by something but it may bring tears in eyes of other person. Hence it seems even more discomforting when other person asks how you can be hurt by such a simple statement or action. What the person fails to understand that a prick of pin makes a baby cry and a cut of knife won’t even make a man cringe.

Hence when dealing with hurt, the receiver only has the right to decide what hurts him and what doesn’t. And in case you still love the other person you will not do something that hurts the other person but doesn’t hurts you.

Because how much a shoe pinches, only the wearer decides.