Letting Go (Tara Taylor Quinn)

"Happiness is as a butterfly try to capture it and it flies away, but if you let it go it may come back to alight upon you."

I don't know who said that, and it might not be those exact words, but when I grew up, this was framed in a pretty piece of art on a wall in my house. It's been on the guest bathroom wall in my mother's bathroom in her current home for as long as I can remember her having the home. I grew up reading it. I read it still. And every single solitary time I read it I know that I'm supposed to find peace there and all I can find is a feeling of being unsettled. I mean, really, what are the chances of a butterfly alighting upon me? Are my chances at happiness as slim as that?

A long time ago I wrote a tribute to the person I was most connected to in the world - my year older than me brother. I could go to him anytime day or night - and did - and he opened his door. When we were younger it was his bedroom door. In our early twenties it was the apartment door right downstairs from my apartment door. And then he was killed in a car accident - on a holiday. Maybe this is why I struggle so much at holiday time. Anyway, I apologize for the digression (but I just had an ah ha moment so thank you). After he died, I wrote this tribute to Chum. In it I talked about the security that set free.

Yesterday I was reading a spiritual post on the internet. It talked about letting go. I get that this is a good thing. That there is so little we can control that there isn't much point in trying. And I agree. It makes no sense to try to control that which you can't control. Like many aspects of the future. Other people's choices. Your health. Accidents.

And yet, even then I am uncomfortable. I'm a huge Stephen Covey's Highly Effective People advocate. I really believe, down to my core, the principals he teaches. He says we have a circle of control. There are things that we do have the ability to control. He suggests that if we concentrate only on those things within our circle, we don't waste time and energy on the fruitless activity of controlling that which we can't - AND we live more effective and happier lives because we DO control that which we can. For instance. I can't control my future, but I can make choices in my now that will have a good effect on my future. I can choose to sit at my computer and write and that might see me on the NYT list in my future. It's provided me years of financial security. If I'd chosen to give up my dream to be a writer, I'd be working at McDonalds right now. (I'm a certified English teacher but I was horrible at it.) I can't control other people's choices, but I can choose and control how I treat them and that will have some effect on their choices (good or bad.) I can't control whether or not I get some illness or other, but I can exercise every day, watch my weight and what I ingest and get enough rest so that I can have a positive effect on my future health.

I've been accused of being controlling. This always stops me in my tracks as I don't even try to control most of what goes on in the world. Anything that is outside my circle of control or my circle of influence, I don't even consider. (Politics for instance. Until last year I didn't even know what right and left were and two of my closest friends are a rightie and a leftie!) But I guess I can see how someone who exists in my close circle could think I was controlling. Because I carefully consider and conciously control the decisions I can so that I don't react (blow in the wind) but, instead, act in the ways that are true to what I want. I'm merely trying to apply what I know and have a positive effect on my life, my future, and on the lives of those I love. (Guess I'm not doing too good a job of that when I seem to be controlling! Always, always, always more that needs work!)

Anyway, all of this came together for me yesterday. I can't just blow in the wind with the butterflies, hoping that one alights on me. And yet, there's a huge truth in letting go. To me, the answer was the security that sets free. We have to recognize our circles of control. We have to make decisions within them. (And if you believe in a spiritual connection, as I do, that comes to play here, too.) If we do this, if we believe it, we will feel secure enough to let go of that which we can't control. That's the security that sets free.

We don't have to blow in the wind. Thank goodness.

(I'm off to make pies now. Lots of them. Pumpkin and Apple and Pecan and these I do well!! And by the way, the apple jelly turned out GREAT!!! I've since made a second batch and soon will be giving it out on street corners!)