Let go absolutely.

Warning! If you do not want to destroy any notions you may have about how "optimistic", or strong I am, do not read this.





There is a chapter in the Alcoholics Anonymous book titled, "How it works". In this chapter is a line so profound, so beautiful in it's simplicity, that it sums up entirely the secret to long lasting inner peace. What is this line?

"Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely."

Self-centeredness, self-involvement, and eventually self-destruction, these are the things I know I can get out of life easily. I have had more than enough experience in these things to know however, that I don't want it anymore. An ideal existence for me, is one without internal turmoil.
Unfortunately for me, what I want is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. In quiet times of self-reflection, when I am honest with myself, I know that I am trying to get a grip on this concept. Most times, I even accomplish letting go rather well. The fact of the matter is though, that I am still a very willful person at heart. I can let go of the way I used to be, the things I used to do, and the way I used to act, but in the end, it seems I replace them with more self-centered goals, more self-involved bullshit, and more self-destructive thinking.
I am tired. I am not tired in the physical sense, no, but I am tired in the emotionally screwed up, unable to let irrelevant things go way.
I have accomplished a couple of pretty neat things since my former wife asked me to leave. I have become a publish poet. I have gotten myself into college somehow. And I have found a manner of living which requires me to be brutally honest with myself. In this honesty, I have had to admit things to myself, that have driven me to the brink of suicide. For anyone who knows me, they know that I am not the type of person who kills themselves, but at that one moment, I was done. I was tired of being who and what I was, and I just wanted to be finished with this journey, and move on to the next. When I was there, I had an experience. I can only describe this as a "spiritual" experience. I hated myself, I hated God, I hated my ex, and I couldn't face life as it was anymore. I dropped to my knees, and I begged. I begged for a reason to live. I begged for God to take all this shit away from me. At this point in my life, I had based everything I was on the woman I was married to. I had no "me" to speak of. I looked in the mirror, and stated simply, with tears streaming down my face, "I hate you.". At that moment, I knew I was too weak to even kill myself properly. I thought I was a complete failure in this journey we call life.
At that point, my "spirtual experience" happened. I knew there was a reason for me to live. I didn't know what it was, still don't really, but there was some reason I wasn't dead yet. Something spoke to me, not in that crazy "I hear the voice of god", kind of way, but something in my heart said to put away the razor, and the pills, and to just go to bed. So I did. I slept like the dead, and when I woke up, I did something I hadn't done in months, I prayed. Why? You might ask. I will tell you. When I woke up, there was a calmness in me, my emotions were like a lake with no breeze. Serenity was mine, at that moment, and I chose to ask God to forgive me for all of the badmouthing I had done, for all of the lashing out like a child. I thanked God right then, for giving me some measure of peace in my life at that moment.
I discovered that morning, that I had "let go absolutely", and that through that act of letting go, I had become happier than I had been in many years.
That was back in the beginning of March, and I haven't forgotten about it. For some as yet unrevealed reason, I am supposed to be alive right now. I have chosen to live life like there was no yesterday, and will be no tomorrow ever since. Now is the only place I can truly be, and the only place I can be happy. I am not perfect in any way at doing this, as some of my posts this week will attest, but I try. Through the act of trying, I am better afterwards than if I chose to go back to my old way of operating in which I would only see the negative, and wallow in it as much as I could; seeking the pity, or disdain from others that I felt for myself.
When someone called me "optimistic", I should have told them the first thing that popped into my head right then, "I am not optimistic, I have faith that things will happen exactly as they are supposed to, and that worrying about it won't make it happen any differently.". Someone once told me, that if worrying would do any good, they would sit and worry away my problems with me.
One more thing, while I have not perfected the art of letting go, I do know that when I can (which is more and more often these days) I can accept life as it happens, and not try to control everything. Controlling how things pan out, the "why" of things, and what other people do/feel/say, are not up to me. Those are management decisions, and I am not management material. I leave that to a power greater than myself, that I choose to call God at this time.


This has been yet another one of littlejoe's emotional pukings, and if you read it, thanks.